138 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER CHAP. 



manners of an ambassador," was eminently true of 

 Flower. 



One of his most distinguished colleagues, Mr. G. 

 A. Boulenger, F.R.S., says: 



His consideration for others and appreciation of their work 

 and plans for work were almost superhuman. He gave all his 

 time in the Museum to the furtherance of its daily activities. 

 He was always accessible. Every one could walk in to see him, 

 or could count upon having " next turn " if he were engaged ; 

 and though his purely administrative duties took up a great part 

 of every day, with the correspondence, interviews, and receptions 

 which it entailed, he found time to carry on a great and original 

 series of expositions of natural laws and facts, all of which he 

 planned and superintended, and some of which was the work of 

 his own hands. 1 



The work by which, apart from his administrative 

 success, he will be always known, was the arrange- 

 ment of the cases which now stand in the Great 



1 Lady Flower writes : " The British Museum had been of such paramount 

 interest to my husband since he was a boy, that when actually appointed to 

 this important post in it, he began his work with an enthusiasm that could 

 not but affect others, and this enthusiasm was continued to the end. The 

 advantage to him of his position as Chief seemed that he could work in 

 the Museum longer than any one else. Often would he remain there after it 

 was closed to the public, and after the staff and attendants had gone, in order 

 to secure some uninterrupted hours for work, and then quietly let himself out 

 with his master-key. In regard to zeal in performing routine work he 

 quoted from an old book, ' "God is close to us in our daily life," and in the 

 familiar homely places, the unremitting attention to simple and high senti- 

 ments in obscure duties that is the maxim for us. I settled myself ever 

 firmer in the creed that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do 

 broad justice where we are, accepting our actual companions and circum- 

 stances.' And in this spirit he worked, most anxious that all about him 

 should have full justice. Few things distressed him more than disagreements ; 

 he always endeavoured to ' throw oil on the troubled waters,' and generally 

 succeeded through the calmness of his own spirit. He knew nothing of 

 professional jealousies, or what so often disturbs the minds of discoverers 

 as to priority of discovery." 



