T'he Days of a Man 1:1905 



That summer was a season of great forest fires in 

 both Canada and Maine. At Quebec, deeming it 

 unsafe to navigate the river with its dark pall of 

 smoke, the captain tied up at the wharf for the better 

 part of twenty-four hours. Three other liners, not so 

 cautiously managed, ran aground at about the same 

 time, one of them being a total loss. 



•'Guide to During 1905 I put forth my "Guide to the Study 

 ^'^f'^^" of Fishes," an elaborate work on the general subject 

 of Ichthyology in two large, well-illustrated volumes 

 and designed to contain all matters of possible general 

 interest in regard to the anatomy, habits, and classi- 

 fication of fishes. Looking through the perspective 

 of years, I think it may fairly be called a monumental 

 piece of work. Errors, of course, crept in, but I hold 

 with Aristotle that "it is a mark of the amateur to 

 expect a greater degree of accuracy than the sub- 

 ject permits." In a review in Nature, the London 

 journal of science, special praise was given to the 

 fact that the "Guide" treats fishes as living organ- 

 isms, not merely as objects in a natural history 

 museum. 

 Henry This treatise was published by Henry Holt, whom 



^°^ I had first met in 1897 at a dinner in Baltimore when 



by good fortune I was seated next to him. His 

 original and virile views on public questions at once 

 interested me, especially his advocacy of free trade. 

 Subsequently he published several of my books — 

 "Fish Stories," "The Stability of Truth," and "The 

 Fate of Iciodorum." At my suggestion, also, he 

 issued a translation of Professor Novicow's essay on 

 "War and Its Pretended Benefits." In 1913 "our 



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