i6 
HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL 
my interest in chemistry centred around the chemical con¬ 
stitution of plants and the chemical life-processes at work in 
living tissues. 
Some of my later views on the chemical evolution of plant 
forms were the outcome of my studies begun with the little 
incident I have related. 
Early in the year 1886, I renewed a friendship dating from 
childhood, but somewhat interrupted by my long residence in 
Europe previous to the eighties, and later by my close appli¬ 
cation to study. This friendship was with Dr. Daniel G. Brin- 
ton, and for many reasons I regard it as the most important 
influence of my life. 
Dr. Brinton directed my thoughts to the higher intellectual, 
spiritual, scientific, and artistic regions, and the year 1886 was 
one of the most formative periods of my mental growth. With 
few exceptions, our tastes and attractions for philosophic 
speculation and literature were the same. In flights of the 
intellectual imagination, I have never met any one who was 
capable of soaring so boldly as he. 
We seldom discussed the details of his scientific work, at 
least in its more special phases, and I think I never heard him 
speak of linguistic subjects or of the characteristics of the In¬ 
dian tribes and races, but we often conversed on subjects ap¬ 
pertaining to the general domain of anthropology, and we most 
frequently found ourselves going over the broad outlines and 
theories of science, especially its generalizations. 
Dr. Brinton encouraged me to print some of the views I 
had reached in my scientific work. These were afterwards 
collected in two lectures published under the titles, “ Chemi¬ 
cal Basis of Plant Forms’’ and “Comparative Chemistry of 
Higher and Lower Plants.” 
I also wrote out my impressions from the study of a collection 
of pictures, exhibited at the rooms of the American Art Asso¬ 
ciation, during the spring of 1886. This was about the first 
time any collection of the works of a school of French painters 
called the “Impressionists” had been exhibited in New York. 
The paintings of Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Manet, and Pisaro 
were among the canvases displayed. This pamphlet I wrote 
