56 The Life and Writings of 



Language can not adequately portray the emotions 

 that arise as these words are written. Here was a man 

 who for years had loved and wooed that coy goddess whom 

 we call Nature; a man who had the soul to appreciate 

 both her richness and her profligacy; whose varied for 

 tunes, both in letters and in means, seem as the details 

 of a romance; he had at last paid the penalty of being 

 a part of that same Nature. He died without a word to 

 cheer him, without a tear shed for him. Rafinesque! 

 The name had gone to every land where science is cul 

 tivated. Rafinesque! The name had been bandied about 

 in jest and contumely by those who should have hailed 

 him as brother. Rafinesque! Dead! He yet lives and 

 will live as long as plants shall be studied and classified ; 

 as long as fishes shall unwittingly fall in the net of the 

 searcher; as long as the waters of the West shall give 

 life to mollusks; as long as changing stream or fleeting 

 cloud or moving star shall bear a message to men. 

 Long may the name of him who studied them all and 

 loved them all and understood them all be revered by 

 those who regard the labors of the pioneer! 



Rafinesque had been dead to the world of brightest 

 minds for some years. The experiences through which 

 he had passed, which involved some of the saddest that 

 come to men, had so broken him that there is little 



