PSYCHE 
Vol. 65 March, 1958 No. 1 
ELIZABETH BANGS BRYANT 
By Elisabeth Deichmann 
Museum of Comparative Zoology 
It was some years after I had come to Cambridge that 
I first met Miss Bryant. At that time (1926) the entomolo- 
gists had their own entrance, and simply going around 
and making calls was not encouraged. But after Thomas 
Barbour became director (1928) and after the Biology 
Department had moved across the street, she and I became 
neighbors on the fourth floor. She discovered that I made 
tea for my lunch and suggested that I come in and drink 
tea with her, and for more than 15 years I usually had 
lunch with her about three times a week. She must have 
been about sixty when we first met and she seemed to 
change very little with the years. She was of medium 
height, fairly stout, with regal carriage. She had un- 
wrinkled skin, clear blue eyes and white hair. In some 
quarters of the museum she was referred to, not unkindly, 
as “Queen Victoria” and although much taller and with a 
decidedly retrousse nose, her black dress, snow-white hair 
and somewhat pendulous cheeks gave her a certain re- 
semblance to that lady. She is the only person I have 
known who used the word “twaddle”, and that with as 
much emphasis as I imagine Queen Victoria did. Behind 
her sedate exterior she kept a rather youthful spirit. She 
was extremely well read with a rich vocabulary of old 
Yankee expressions and after she had used one of these 
she would suddenly pretend that she was embarassed : 
“Oh, Miss Deichmann, I really should not teach you such 
language !” 
It is perhaps quite characteristic that I never had the 
slightest idea of what her father had been, while I was 
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SMITHSONIAN m . y * g «H| 
UNSTlTUTiON 
