Wrexie Louise Leonard

“ We love this universal calm which surrounds Nature before it sleeps. We love this unchangeable peace which descends from the rising stars! The starry sky which lights up the Earth which falls asleep, these are the spectacles which draw us away from a world of clamorous passions—pleasures of the soul which we enjoy in peace. ”

“ A jack-rabbit now inhabits the Observatory grounds. I have twice flushed him from his precious night's couch in the hollow under the crest that overlooks the mill; and twice failed in snap-shotting him with my camera. Coyote tracks are in evidence everywhere but I have not seen the beasts in the flesh.
Our Saturn studies progress; we have missed but one night since I arrived, though two of the others have not been much. Curtis snow-shoes everywhere and I enclose a shot I took of him measuring the depth of the snow just under the west hill where you found one of your arrowheads. ”

“ FLAGSTAFF The Peaks this morning are white-laced from yesterday's storm, a white mantilla over their heads and shoulders. With yesterday's mail, too, came a long-given up letter from Morse Sensei, pouring ashes on his own head and beating his breast for his failure to write before. He enclosed a letter from Elihu Thomson of a most interesting character. Prof. Thomson made himself some time ago a teninch glass, and this summer he has been trying to see something on Mars. Most of the nights were, bad, but on July 5th he was vouchsafed an hour of capital seeing and behold the canals came out. ”

“ Is there another planet, however, upon which there is any present opportunity to pursue planetological studies with equal facilities and the probability of similarly brilliant rewards? With Mars the deductions from postulates and analogies drawn from terrestrial data and laws could be confirmed from certain visible facts. But if there be no other as promising field, Mr. Lowell's wisdom in concentrating on Mars is justified the more and the thanks of the world have been well earned by his devotion to it. ”

“ LOWELL OBSERVATORY
FLAGSTAFF
It arrived bearing its fill of good wishes and what an imposing box it was, and how beautiful within with its bark and blue bows. Two houses in fact! What munificence! Nothing could have been more appropriate; for my birthday practically begins the spring and the birds return. Thank you all so much. They, the houses, shall be set up forthwith. Where? that is the question. When placed they shall be photographed and you all be sent a copy. With my appreciative thanks to each member of the quartette I am———
MARS' HILL The snow is going; going fast. ”

“ Especially is this true when the lecture is delivered before an audience of youth. For those entering upon life are the most important hearers a lecturer can ever address. Youth is the period of possibilities. Then it is that the mind is open, plastic to impressions which at the same time it is most potent to retain. . . .
"Plasticity of mind is the premise to possibility of performance. To retain it longest is the great essential to success. For the ability to succeed has been defined as not having to stop till you get there. ”

“ MARS' HILL Two pictures go in this: one of Curtis on his skis, the other of the home of a jack-rabbit we are getting to know quite well. He nipped off the lower buds of some of the fruit trees of Dr. Slipher's, the naughty one, and I have twice seen him. He lives over near the south ridge. I have an uncomfortable feeling that I wrote this and sent you his picture before. No matter. Give the second to whoever likes it. Ditto Curtis.
Today was to be despatched a series of Halley's comet which it will please you to look at; also some Saturns. This season has beaten all others here for snow. ”

“ How wonderfully good it is, though, no one can begin to know who has not been brought face to face with the bewildering marvels of this utterly different world. I have just been reading in supplement, Lafcadio Hearn's 'Japan,' which gives your brilliant psychology the historical setting almost needful to bring out its full power. ”

“ His books have been translated into foreign languages, including even Chinese. And in his lectures: in these, as through a rift in the clouds like a star, he shone, while his audiences sat spellbound. He was a marvel to those who heard him. Many will remember that in his last lecture course before the Lowell Institute in Boston (later crystallized into permanent form) , standing room was nil, and demands for admission were so numerous and insistent that repetitions were arranged for the evenings. ”

“ It is a last quiet study afternoon here, for tomorrow the Limited that we see rolling down to the station below with its long-drawn whistle should be taking me in a moment eastward too.
A tall yellow flower—the single-blossomed one—nods to me out of one window, while Indian paint-brushes blush at me from without the other. There are numbers of the last this year, more than I ever saw before. Paint-brush Point you remember—where the earliest are found is carpeted with them and from the rock where the very first always appear. ”

“ In all parts of the world, nature touched him alike from the Peaks of Arizona to the Woods of Fontainebleau and the plum-trees of Korea.
In prose writing he excelled. In poetry he at times was touched with the Divine fire. The following is a sparkling gem of that which even great poets might be proud to say "this is mine own." It is poetry of a high order. It follows the established rules of rhythm and rhyme and attains its object in the loveliest and simplest measures. It will serve to show one of the varied moods that went to make up the mentality and spiritual essence of Dr. Lowell. ”

“ If you had never done anything but this excellent trace of your past, you would stay among those who will never be forgotten. ..."
(B.W.) Tokyo, June 11, '11.
In a published correspondence between Mr. Hearn and his friend George M. Gould, Esq., Mr. Gould writes: "Perhaps I should not have succeeded in getting Hearn to attempt 'Japan' had it not been for a little book that fell into his hands during his stay with me. In sending it to me he wrote:
"'Gooley! ... I have found a marvellous book ... a book of books! ... a colossal, splendid, godlike book. You must read every line of it. ”

“ These exhibits were not only beautiful but wonderful. They represented, so everyone might see, discoveries which could be made only at Flagstaff. They were the most advanced and remarkable exhibitions of the kind that the world had ever seen. Appreciated as this was by the older public, Dr. Lowell believed that the most important interest the exhibit could gain was the interest of youth. ”

“ If Sola is right in saying, or being quoted as saying, that it has a rapid retrograde motion, it cannot be a far planet.
On Wednesday last Mr. Lampland and I went in the red car juniper hunting with success and pleasure. We started down the old Cosnino road, to the edge of Turkey Hill's mesa and thence to Winona and beyond. The berries in the latter spot on J. utahensis were something to make one stare. They covered the branches in solid masses, outdoing grapes by 100%. I never saw such fruit profusion. When the prints of my photographs dry you shall have a faint idea of what we saw. ”

“ The proof that there is no illusion consists in the fact that only at the moments of very great steadiness could the detail be seen:—canals and all. If the effect were the result of optical illusion, it should have appeared on other nights and on last night it should have been present even when the disc was only fairly steady.
The reality is exactly the contrary. To see this finer detail demands the maximum of steadiness, and therefore the appearance when seen is that of the true markings of Mars. ”

“ Sometimes it charms us; sometimes it repels. But we can no more be oblivious to it than we can to the temperature of the air. Its possessor has but to enter the room, and insensibly we are conscious of a presence. ”

“ Bearing upon Mars, on the rectilinear appearance of the canals, is the clipping enclosed which will interest you and Morse if he drops in. It explains why the lines do not appear as curved as they should. The eye rectifies them.
My lectures are to be a wedding of Earth to Mars through geology. In consequence I have been devouring works on the subject of our own Earth's history, both English and French.
One makes curious visual acquaintances in the courts of these French hotels. There is a man over the enclosed way who spends his time at little else than trimming and brushing his hair! ”

“ He began one of his last lectures by saying: "The value of a lecture consists not so much in the body of learning it may be able to impart as in the inspiration it gives others to pursue knowledge for themselves. ”

“ We are told that the good die young; our regret being father to the thought. But certain it is that the great die young even though they pass the Psalmist's limit of three score and ten. The plasticity of their mental makeup is the elixir of life poor Ponce de Leon sought in vain. ”

“ It is a poverty-stricken flora one sees here especially in town;—plane-tree, plane-tree and again plane-tree, until one wishes all were not so plane. I have become possessed of a most excellent English book on trees, native and imported, quite the best, everything considered, and shall I say quite as good as our best ”

“ Instinctively the world associates him with the planet Mars. All the world loves the man of ideas who has the courage of his convictions. After continuous research, he was thoroughly convinced that life exists on Mars ”

“ After 12 inches of snow had fallen the sky made show of opening up, then hesitated and finally after sundown began slowly to emerge to the northeast between Elden and the Peaks and so roll back the clouds to the S. W. During which a surface west wind blew. The Zodiacal Light was conspicuous and the stars very brilliant though really blurred.
MARS' HILL It does one good to hear pleasant things. It is like a ray of sunshine on a stormy day. ”

“ It will readily be understood that the question of site is of fundamental importance to an astronomer who wishes to solve the mysteries of the heavens. Dr. Lowell spared neither time nor money to meet this need, and he travelled far and wide in search of what he termed: "the best procurable air." In Japan; in the Maritime-Alps, Algeria, Mexico, California and Arizona, he diligently searched. Finally he found a plateau at Flagstaff, Arizona, at an altitude of about 7000 ft., which he discovered to be the best for his purpose. ”

“ On Thursday last I was the guest of the Royal Society Club—the inner circle of the Royal Society—at dinner. I sat at the right of the president of the Club, Sir Clifford Allbutt, and Sir David Prain, the Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, on mine. After the sweets and the regulation toasts, they got me to talk; and I showed them some of the slides, passed round the table. Tonight I dine with Prof. Boys at his club, the Saville. Thursday I leave for the Hotel Chatham, Paris.
Dr. Slipher's cable arrived very apropos "Spectrograms show Virgo Nebula rotating." ”

“ I suddenly just now on a walk flushed or rather saw, my attention roused by a slight sound, a coyote shackeled by one of our traps. Two weeks ago this trap, set for a coyote, disappeared and nothing had been heard from it. I turned instinctively and there was a large brown coyote shambling along dragging a trap. It was in the little valley just this side of the outer Southern ridge of the home place. I started after him and found he could go nearly as fast as I could. So I made for the shop, roused the men and we in posse went to surround the little copse on the second rise. ”

“ Shortly I hope to send you more of Mars' pictures. We have had the worst season I have ever known, not one first-class day so far and only one or two second-class ones. East winds on end. What folks characterize as beautiful weather and worse than a storm for sight.
I hope Thanksgiving in the far woods was ideal.
Here there has been no snow as yet. Even the peaks which some three weeks ago took on a lacelike mantle have allowed almost all of it to fret away. ”

“ Lowell several dollars, but he treated it gaily.
"A SILLY-WET DAY"
IV
His best friend in the far West was Judge Edward M. Doe, of Flagstaff; and his own words: "We insensibly find those persons congenial whose ideas resemble ours, and gravitate to them as leaves on a pond do to one another, nearer and nearer until they touch," are exemplified by this friendship. He found there, in the wilds, this learned gentleman. And his greatest delight was to dine with him, picnic, climb the mountains, scan the cañons, or what not, and discuss at large with him subjects of law. ”