The Benefactors 243 



at that time considered a handsome fortune. The fifteen 

 years following this he spent in traveling over Europe and 

 America, and finally in 1875 he settled down in Setauket, 

 Long Island, upon his place " Brambletye Farm," which he 

 rarely left, except for an occasional visit to New York City, 

 until his death. 



Mr. Hodgkins was a man of remarkably self-poised mind, 

 singularly independent in his modes of thought, and indepen- 

 dent also of the need of social converse or of adventitious 

 interests. His opinions were his own, and he found in the 

 reading which confirmed them and in the care of his little 

 farm abundant and agreeable occupation for the leisure of 

 his declining years. 



He was a man of keen intelligence, and by nature, perhaps, 

 still more a thinker and a scholar than a man of affairs, though 

 even in the latter capacity his ability was proven by his suc- 

 cess in business. He possessed a strong will, and had delib- 

 erately formed and tenaciously held opinions of his own in 

 relation to religious and philosophical questions. In regard 

 to the former, it may be sufficient to say that his mind was 

 of a devout cast, and that while he had thought much for him- 

 self, he retained to the last an absolute trust in the divine 

 guidance as the leading motive of his life. 



Mr. Hodgkins had for more than thirty years made a spe- 

 cial study of the atmosphere in its relations to the well-being 

 of humanity. He believed that most of the physical evils to 

 which mankind are subject arise from the vitiation of the air 

 which they breathe, and that the study of the atmosphere is 

 not unimportant even with relation to man's moral and spirit- 

 ual, as well as his physical health ; and though he did not 

 point out any line of investigation likely to bear fruit in the 

 latter direction, it was his hope that the concentration of 

 thought upon the atmosphere and its study from every point 



