Samuel Franklin Emmons 



work, for the greater part of what 

 he did was never published, and 

 very likely never even written. It 

 was his habit to work out in his 

 head any subject which interested 

 him, even down to its minutest de- 

 tails, before putting a pen to paper ; 

 once this was accomplished to his 

 satisfaction, he wrote with such ease 

 and rapidity that the words actually 

 flowed from his pen. Probably one 

 reason that he did not write more 

 was that his own literary taste was 

 so refined and exacting that he was 

 never thoroughly satisfied with his 

 own conceptions. In his scientific 

 writing, there was generally some 

 imperious necessity that made it 

 urgent upon him to give his results 

 to the public in spite of the imper- 

 fections he might still see in them, 

 but in literature such necessity rarely 

 appeared. What he did publish he 

 himself held in comparatively light 

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