MEMOIR OF JAMES HALL 435 



Absolutely ignorant of the art of lobbjnng, unwilling or unable to con- 

 ciliate an adversary, possessing pronounced "political principles which 

 he never concealed, this man by sheer force of will compelled men to 

 rise superior to all party calls; so that throughout his career there were 

 men of all shades of political opinion, inside and outside of the legisla- 

 ture, who held the preservation of his work to be a matter of supreme 

 necessity for the welfare of the state. 



But contests such as these, beginning in his early manhood, did not 

 leave him unscarred. Surrounded by men hating him for his success, 

 harassed by men anxious to reap the harvest which he had sowed, his 

 life became one continuous anxiet3^ In later years his political and 

 official foes were reinforced by others, who seemed to feel that he had 

 done injustice to the world by living too long and thereby securing 

 more than his share of profit. It is not strange that he was often stern 

 and forbidding, carrying into scientific disputes the manner which was 

 his wont when dealing with official adversaries ; but it was easy to find 

 the man if only one would, for in personal relations he gave his confi- 

 dence as freely and affectionately as a child. 



Take him all in all. Professor Hall ^vas a great man. His excellencies 

 were towering, his faults glaring. Transparent as crystal, his course was 

 frank, open, and his word as good as a bond. His friends would do any- 

 thing for him; his enemies would do anything against him. No one 

 knowing him remained indifferent. For a friend he would sacrifice his 

 own interests at any time. He was every read to crush an enemy in 

 the abstract, but the enemy in the concrete, if needing assistance, could 

 find no readier helper than he. Years of bitter aspersion were forgotten 

 more than once when a slanderer became need}^, and Professor Hall was 

 quick to risk his own in rendering aid. He knew well how to distinguish 

 between friend and flatterer. The wounds of a friend were never resented. 

 He never desired his friends, in proof of friendship, to share in his 

 enmities. He was a manly man, with a single aim throughout his life. 

 Like a sturdy knight of medieval times, he kept his face toward the goal, 

 turning neither to the right nor to the left — one of the grandest and most 

 picturesque figures in the history of our science. 



As he lived, so he died, self-reliant to the last. In 1897, at Saint Peters- 

 burg, he said that he intended to send his likeness to me in a gold frame, 

 but not at once, as it would seem too much like the last farewell. During 

 the winter of 1897-1898 he had several severe attacks of vertigo, and in 

 the spring he wrote that there were evidences of giving way, such as to 

 convince him that the work might not go on much longer. In July he 

 must have felt that the end was approaching, for he sent the likeness on 

 the plate of gold just as he left Albany for Echo Hill. 



