6 A PILGRIMAGE TO BRUNN 



to whatever task he undertook. These were the qualities that led 

 him to analyze the problems of heredity on the basis of single char- 

 acteristics, and which led him (quite unlike all previous students of 

 the phenomena of hybridization) to continue his studies on the sim- 

 plest possible material until the problems were solved, though it 

 required seven years of close application and painstaking labor. 

 The same characteristics probably cost him the satisfaction of see- 

 ing before he died, the triumph which, by fortunate accident, has 

 come to his work two decades after his death ; for about two years 

 after the publication of his great work he was elected to the Prelacy 

 of the Monastery and his time and attention were thenceforth 

 absorbed with heavy administrative duties and his investigations 

 in the field of heredity came to an end. The intensity of his devo- 

 tion to the problems of his institution thus prevented his following 

 up his first report with others which would have sooner or later 

 attracted the attention of other students. 



As we proceeded on our tour of inspection, Father Barcina 

 told me of this little clock which still hung on the chamber wall 

 where it had been placed by Mendel, and said that when I departed-- 

 he would give it to me as an "Andenken" of my visit. Such care 

 had been obviously taken to preserve the relics of Mendel's exist- 

 ence and work at the Monastery that I feared I might be misunder- 

 standing the Father's rather swift-moving German, but when he 

 had repeated the statement and sent one of his brethren to pack it 

 up for me, I knew that I had not mistaken his intention. Thus it 

 is that I have on my study wall this little alarm-clock which may 

 many times have wakened Mendel to an early-morning competition 

 with the bees in hybridization experiments on the peas in his gar- 

 den. I have permitted it to awaken me in the same manner, and it 

 has also assisted in keeping awake the enthusiasm which must sus- 

 tain the long-continued effort necessary to the solution of evolu- 

 tionary problems. 



Before taking my departure we also spent a few moments in 

 the chapel which is attached to the Monastery by a short covered 

 passage. This is said to be the most beautiful small cliapel in cen- 

 _tral Europe.' It is built of gray stone in Gothic style in the form of 

 a cross, is splendidly harmonious in its proportions, and is not 

 spoiled by over-decoration. The groups of statuary overlooking 

 the apse are of real artistic merit as well .as of allegorical signifi- 

 cance, and so also are the large stained-glass windows. There is 

 none of that cheap and tawdry over-display which spoils so many 

 European chapels. 



With many expressions of mutual pleasure in my visit, I took 

 leave of Father Barcina, and bearing my precious little "Andenken/' 



