t i a 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
trated monograph of him, he delighted 
to spend hours in a rowboat on his 
little lake. We believe he would ap- 
prove our selection, as a final tribute 
to his memory, of the greatly admired 
photograph that shows him in his boat 
rowing onward, onward, alone and ap- 
proaching in faith and confidence the 
shore of the great unknown. 
His love at all seasons of the year 
for this little lake and the surrounding 
woods has many a time impressed the 
editor of this magazine with his true 
affection for nature’s simple things. 
When he was well in the eighties, after 
walking in the woods and along the 
lake, in the middle of winter, with some 
six or eight inches of snow on the 
ground, he returned to his house arm 
and arm with the editor of this maga- 
zine, and pausing just as his home came 
in sight from the beautiful, tree bor- 
dered driveway, he said : “Bigelow, do 
you see all of that house?” I said: “I 
see all that is visible through the trees.” 
“Yes, but you cannot see what is visible 
to me : a vision of the past winter, when 
I had that long sickness and everybody 
said I was not going to live. The angel 
of death hovered over that house, en- 
tered my bedroom, shook his head sad- 
ly and went away remarking, ‘Too 
green yet.’ ” 
In another manner he was fond of 
dwelling upon the many years through 
which he had been spared. “You know 
all predictions sometimes fail. A year 
or two ago, some twenty or more of 
my friends expressed sympathy be- 
cause they expected I was going to 
die. Since then nearly all of those have 
died and I am still living and (with a 
hearty laugh) quite a good deal alive ” 
Only a few weeks ago the editor took 
a company of six young women to 
spend a little time at his home. As 
we were leaving, he walked down the 
driveway and said : “Don’t forget that 
I always regard young people as the 
best crown of my gray hairs.” He al- 
ways was fond of the company of young 
folks, especially of girls and young 
women. He had in his disposition an 
element of gentleness, lovableness and 
beauty of thought that was always pe- 
culiarly attractive to girls and young 
women. They never failed to appre- 
ciate him as a friend, kindly counselor 
and pleasing entertainer. 
Commodore E. C. Benedict will con- 
tinue to live in the hearts of his friends, 
and in the grand hospital that he estab- 
lished in Greenwich. That institution 
was emblematic of his life, a desire to 
do good to others, to help others even 
at the sacrifice of himself. He believed 
in moderate living, right thinking and in 
keeping a genial heart, and the great 
and genial heart of Mother Nature, that 
loses nothing, will kindly care for him 
and continue that fullness somewhere, 
somehow, as he would wish it to be. 
Mr. Avery, Member of The Agassiz 
Association. 
The death of Samuel P. Avery of 
Elartford, Connecticut, was briefly 
noted in our November number, in- 
formation not having been received 
SAMUEL P. AVERY. 
until just as we went to press with that 
number. Since then, through the kind- 
ness of “The Bulletin of the Brooklyn 
Institute of Arts and Sciences,” we 
have been favored with a cut of this 
philanthropist. 
Air. Avery was primarily interested 
in art, perhaps almost equally so in 
education, but not quite so much so in 
the direct work of The Agassiz Asso- 
ciation. It is evident that his member- 
ship with us and his frequent liberal 
