16 HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL 



my interest in chemistry centred around the chemical con- 

 stitution of plants and the chemical life-processes at work in 

 living tissues. 



Some of my later views on the chemical evolution of plant 

 forms were the outcome of my studies begun with the little 

 incident I have related. 



Early in the year 1886, I renewed a friendship dating from 

 childhood, but somewhat interrupted by my long residence in 

 Europe previous to the eighties, and later by my close appli- 

 cation to study. This friendship was with Dr. Daniel G. Brin- 

 ton, and for many reasons I regard it as the most important 

 influence of my life. 



Dr. Brinton directed my thoughts to the higher intellectual, 

 spiritual, scientific, and artistic regions, and the year 1886 was 

 one of the most formative periods of my mental growth. With 

 few exceptions, our tastes and attractions for philosophic 

 speculation and literature were the same. In flights of the 

 intellectual imagination, I have never met any one who was 

 capable of soaring so boldly as he. 



We seldom discussed the details of his scientific work, at 

 least in its more special phases, and I think I never heard him 

 speak of linguistic subjects or of the characteristics of the In- 

 dian tribes and races, but we often conversed on subjects ap- 

 pertaining to the general domain of anthropology, and we most 

 frequently found ourselves going over the broad outlines and 

 theories of science, especially its generalizations. 



Dr. Brinton encouraged me to print some of the views I 

 had reached in my scientific work. These were afterwards 

 collected in two lectures published under the titles, " Chemi- 

 cal Basis of Plant Forms" and "Comparative Chemistry of 

 Higher and Lower Plants." 



I also wrote out my impressions from the study of a collection 

 of pictures, exhibited at the rooms of the American Art Asso- 

 ciation, during the spring of 1886. This was about the first 

 time any collection of the works of a school of French painters 

 called the "Impressionists" had been exhibited in New York. 

 The paintings of Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Manet, and Pisaro 

 were among the canvases displayed. This pamphlet I wrote 



