388 Edward Livingston Yonmans : 



l)lain. His task of course began in reaching thoroughly clear 

 views as to the tliemes of his study. For this complete grasp of 

 ideas, and facility in communicating them, he was indebted in 

 no small measure to the circumstances of his early years in New 

 York. Unfortunate as those years were in many ways they were 

 not without their compensations. When he left the eye-inlirmary, 

 in his nineteenth year, he went to board at a Mrs. Cook's, who.se 

 house was at the corner of I'earl and Hague streets. Most of his 

 fellow-boarders were printers, and their friendship was soon 

 enlisted by his intelligence and vivacity. As opportunity offered 

 they would read to him, and as his choice lay among books of 

 science he had abundant food for reflection when left by himself. 

 Throughout life it was his habit aiid pleasure to talk over with 

 his friends whatever interested him, so that in those early days 

 he spent a good many hours explaining to the young printers 

 about him something of the facts and principles he had been 

 digesting; thus all unconsciously receiving a capital training for 

 his future work as a scientific expositor. There can be no doubt 

 that, to a man of his impulsive temperament, blindness and 

 solitude compelled a depth of reflection which happier circum- 

 stances would have denied. And in teaching lessons so painfully 

 learned to others much less informed than himself he took his 

 lirst steps in the mastery of an art in which he afterward excelled, 

 the difficult art of interesting every-day people in science and 

 making its truths simple and clear. As a writer he was his own 

 severest critic in this regard. Articles widely quoted for their 

 apparent spontaneity, articles which might seize the pith of a 

 controversy, or wittily prick some bubble of fallacy, were the 

 products of hard labor. He often re-wrote parts of a manuscript 

 a dozen times, and only surrendered it to the printer when the 

 printer would wait no longer. His introduction to "The Culture 

 Demanded by Modern Life," perhaps his best piece of writing, 

 was pruned, revised and recast so much that at last scarcely a 

 sentence of the original draft remained. When he became editor, 

 the art he had so faithfully practised he commended to others. 

 Here is a specimen letter to a young contributor : 



"New Yokk, May Hrh, ISTd. 

 ''My Dear Sir : 



" Your article appears in the June number. As I stated to you 

 at first, it is excellent, and will be read by many with appreciation. 

 But when I looked over tiie j)r()of it occurred to me that it had 

 some faults of ])resentation, i)erhai)s due to your lack of practice 

 in putting abstract things to coiuTnon readers. Our scientilic 

 readers, of course, will have no trouble in understanding you, and 

 will enjoy your argiunent, but eight-tenths of the patrons of the 

 Monthli/ "wiU get but a i)artial comprehension of it. Of course so 

 abstract a topic as "The Mathematics of Evolution" may bt^ 

 expected to recjuire .some intellectual force to grasp it, and I am 

 well content with your main exposition. Still, I think sonu' 

 serious and systematic attention on your ])art to the art and 

 artilice of clear and familiar statement, which will give you 

 access to ordinary minds, is very imjxirtant. I do not mean for a 

 moment that your writing is obscure, but only that your composi- 

 tion would be improved if you had in yoiu' mind's eye a j)erson of 



