Bernard Le Bouyer de Marivaux

“ He invented, as has been said, no new genre; he did not, as Marivaux and Prévost did, help on the novel as distinguished from the romance. In form his books are undistinguishable, not merely from the Spanish romances which are, as has been said, their direct originals, but from the medieval romans d’aventures and the Greek prose romances. But in individual excellence they have few rivals. Nor should it be forgotten, as it sometimes is, that Le Sage was a great master of French style, the greatest unquestionably between the classics of the 17th century and the classics of the 18th. ”

“ Molière, Marivaux, Sedaine, and Beaumarchais had no more accomplished interpreter, and in her career of half a century, besides many comedy rôles of the older répertoire, she created fully a hundred parts in plays which owed success largely to her. For her farewell performance she selected Elmire in Tartuffe, and Silvia in Jeu de l’amour et du hasard, two of her most popular rôles; and for her benefit, a few days after, Célimène in Le Misanthrope and Araminthe in Les Femmes savantes. She retired in 1841, and died in Paris on the 20th of March 1847. ”

“ Comedy was no longer to provoke laughter, but tears. The innovation consisted in destroying the sharp distinction then existing between tragedy and comedy in French literature. Indications of this change had been already offered in the work of Marivaux, and La Chaussée’s plays led naturally to the domestic drama of Diderot and of Sedaine. ”

“ He tried, through life, never to do anything of which his conscience disapproved, and he studied, even in minutest matters, exactitude and moderation. Maury’s general knowledge was very extensive, and in his own special science he excelled above all other men. ”

“ When it is remembered that his contacts with men were extremely numerous, and that the opportunities for unpleasant controversy were almost without number in view of the fact that he was such an ardent advocate of whatever question he took up, whether it was scientific, economic, or political, it is truly remarkable that there were so few who became hostile to him. But strange as it may seem, those who as a class were most unfriendly to Maury and least sympathetic toward his work were a considerable number of his brother officers in the navy. ”

“ Murray's "auspicious hope" of success was amply fulfilled. He "wrote to Lord Byron on the 13th of December, 1816, informing him that at a dinner at the Albion Tavern, he had sold to the assembled booksellers 7000 of his Third Canto of Childe Harold...." ”

“ That Maury’s fame and honor may ever grow greater and that his life’s work may be an inspiration for ax future Pathfinder of the Air appears a sufficient reason for the publication of this biography by his brother officers of the Navy. ”

“ But fortunately for Maury nothing could be found prejudicial against his character and his record in the files of the Navy Department, and he exulted over the fact that he had never tripped in his youth. He became disgusted with all the accusations and insinuations that had been aroused, and declared that they were heart-sickening to a man who loved to live at peace with all the world. ”

“ Father’s reputation must rest on his work at sea and a biography can only speak of other things as indications of his clear and far-seeing mind. The world is full of similar cases in all great improvements, and the world invariably gives the credit not to the man who first thought of them but to the man who puts the ideas into practise”.
When Maury was stricken with sickness on his last lecturing tour, he seemed to realize that he would not recover, for when he arrived at home and entered the house he said to his wife, “My dear, I am come home to die”. ”

“ It is this perspective of time that makes possible the writing of this biography with the confidence that the time has now come when throughout our entire country Maury’s greatness as a scientist and as a man will be seen in its true proportions, and his fine struggle against obstacles to attain his ideals and accomplish his purposes will serve as an inspiration and a challenge to every American. ”

“ In 1726, if not before, he was journeyman to William Bowyer [q. v.] , the 'learned' printer, and he ever acknowledged the kindness with which he had been treated, in proof of which he left by his will ten guineas to Bowyer for a mourning wig. ”

“ To force you into the straighter, broader courses of the uncomplex would be as cruel as to upset a bowl with gold-fish in it and leave them gasping on the tablecloth. Ooh!" She sat back on her heels and ruefully beheld her grimy fingers.
Maurice tried his hardest to endure her. She heard him breathing heavily.
"It's really quite unnecessary to have a fire," she soliloquised. "But it makes a point in a room, I always think. Keeps one in countenance. Humanises things a bit. Makes a centre point for———"
She became incoherent. Maurice's irritation audibly increased. ”

“ When he was four years old his parents moved to Tennessee and settled near Franklin. Maury assisted his father and brothers on the farm, and lived the life of the early settler in a new country. He thus became a sturdy, healthy boy. Here in the wilderness schools and churches were alike few and far between, and the education of the pioneer’s children was derived at home, or in the “old held school.” Plain living and high thinking was the motto in the Maury household. ”

“ THEODORE MAURY [a French scientist who worked in the same fields as MFM]
LIVING WITH HIS SON “BRAVE” [Matthew Fontaine Maury Jr.]
The following is an extract from a letter to the Rev. F. W. Tremlett, D.C.L., incumbent of St. Peter’s, Belsize Park, N.W., written while Maury was a Bowdon, England, where he resided at this time to be near his son “Brave”, who was at school there:
“My quiet life here is like the pleasant visions of the night. ”

“ It was from this Spotsylvania home, in 1810, that Richard Maury, heeding the call of the West, set out with his family, by the wagon trail, for the Blue Grass Region of Tennessee, and settled on the Big Harpeth River near Franklin. That tedious journey of more than 500 miles may be more easily imagined than described, but at last it ended on the borderland of the Golden West. They were again domiciled—father, mother, and eight children, all except John Minor, a lad of seventeen, already four years a midshipman in the United States Navy. ”

“ Captain Maury's mind was occupied in wide, diversified fields, while his kinsman's ambition and abilities were centered on the community in which he lived, and yet each was proud of the other's success and when the man of science saw the deep and widespread grief of a whole community, caused by my father's death, he would sometimes say that perhaps Walker had chosen the better part in gathering in such a harvest of love. ”

“ In Lexington at the Virginia Military Institute there is a Maury-Brooke Hall in which the physical sciences are taught. In Richmond, the house in which he invented the electric mine has been marked, and in South Richmond a street, a cemetery, and an elementary school all bear his name. Norfolk has a Matthew Fontaine Maury High School; while Fredericksburg has its Maury Hotel, and has marked the house where he resided for several years. In Goshen Pass, a tablet in Maury’s honor was unveiled on June 9, 1923. ”

“ Not long after Maury’s return to England, his friends began to urge him to return to the United States. There was some talk of a professorship in astronomy for him at the University of Virginia; and a definite offer of a chair in the Virginia Military Institute was made to him by the Superintendent as early as February, 1867. A little later he was asked to become the vice-chancellor of the University of the South, and for several months he was favorably inclined toward accepting this position. ”

“ In 1790 Richard Maury, son of the Reverend James Maury, married Diana Minor, daughter of Major John Minor, of Topping Castle in Caroline County, Virginia, descended from the settler who had received a grant of land in the reign of Charles II. There were nine children of this marriage; and thus the blood of Protestant England was commingled with that of Huguenot France in the veins of this Virginia family. After their marriage, Richard and Diana Minor Maury first settled in Spottsylvania County, about ten miles west of Fredericksburg. ”

“ Immediately after Maury’s death there was a veritable flood of eulogies of the character and services of the great scientist. They were by no means confined to the colleges, legislators, and newspapers of Virginia; but the scientific journals throughout the world made known in unmistakable terms the high estimation in which he was held. For example, the British journal Nature of March 20, 1873, declared that Maury was the first to show how meteorology could be raised to the dignity of a science, and that he was essentially a practical man in the highest sense of the term. ”

“ The Bowery is a mile of American life in which the nations of the earth meet for excitement and change. There is a business aspect of it which is permanent, but the many-colored throng surging up and down its side-walks all day and all night is ephemeral. It is the place for the homeless, for the out of kilter, for the rudderless wrecks who drift. ”

“ The second object of the Maury Association was to induce the State Board of Education of Virginia to appoint January 14th—Maury’s birthday—as Maury Day in the schools; this was done June 27, 1916. Their third and most ambitious undertaking was the erection of a bronze statue of Maury in Richmond. In this effort slow but steady progress was made. The Virginia legislature contributed $10,000, and after the close of the World War the United Daughters of the Confederacy gave their support to the raising of funds. The school children of Virginia gave $2000, and many others contributed generously. ”

“ In this connection, it is of interest to note that in addition to his salary of $3,500 as Superintendent of the Observatory Maury received from Harper’s as royalties on his “Physical Geography of the Sea” from $300 to $400 a year up to the Civil War. He was also paid considerable sums for his contributions to the magazines, such as the Southern Literary Messenger, from which according to his account book he received over $600 from November, 1841 to December, 1842. Maury had, however, a large family of eight children, and their needs increased from year to year. ”

“ In addition to his occasional speeches, Maury also appeared on the regular lecture platform, where he delivered three different series of lectures. “My lot in life”, he wrote, “is cast among those whose necessities compel them to stop with philosophy now and then and ‘court Dame Fortune’s golden smile’ until she vouchsafe a few extra centimes with which one may propitiate butcher and baker. Yielding to these necessities, I have occasionally to abandon the winds and the sea, and go digging in the hopes of finding a few of the ‘roots of evil’ wherewith to propitiate amiable creditors. ”

“ Maury, smaller, lither, looked as though his nerves were fairly on edge. His face was pale and he darted [291] anxious glances at his opponents as he came back to his place in the line.
“On your marks!” called the starter in businesslike voice. ”

“ After being engaged on surveying work for more than a year, Maury obtained a few weeks leave to visit his parents in Tennessee, and attend to some business matters for his father, who was now old and infirm. He also wished to make arrangements for bringing his parents into Virginia to live with him. On his way back to New York he was thrown from the top of a stagecoach, he having given his seat inside to a poor woman who could not stand the exposure of the cold night air. Maury’s leg was broken at the knee. ”

“ Maury died on 31st December 1755.
Her son was the Rev. James Maury. He paid a visit to England in 1742, when he received ordination from the Bishop of London. On his return he became minister of Fredericksville parish, Louisa county. He married a niece of Colonel Walker, described as the chief person in the Ohio Company, in whose territory he settled. His letters to his uncles in England (to whom he signs himself sometimes “Your dutiful nephew and affectionate friend” — sometimes, “Yours affectionately and dutifully,”) show him to have been a sensible and able man. ”

“ And with that Bowyer burst into the room with his men behind him. He held a revolver in his hand.
"I shall shoot the first man who moves," he said; and no one did move. They stood like wax figures moulded in an attitude for ever. Imagine, if you can, the scene which confronted me! On the library ladder, with a hand thrust behind the books on one of the highest shelves, was mounted one of the three foreigners. A second--he whom we had seen at the window--stood over a chair into which Bradley Rymer was strapped with a gag over his mouth. The third supported Violet. ”

“ Maury, then, was not merely a theorizer without the power of applying his ideas to the practical needs of men.84 His greatness consisted in his being a man of vision and imagination, and at the same time a man of tremendous industry who was willing to toil endlessly that his theories might be made practical realities. This aim of unselfish service to humanity was displayed in all his researches in the science of the sea, from which came the works upon which his claim to fame chiefly rests. These were “The Wind and Current Charts”, “Sailing Directions”, and “The Physical Geography of the Sea”. ”

“ In 1860 du Maurier came to England, and in the autumn began to do book illustrations, appearing for the first time in the pages of 'Once a Week,' a periodical remarkable, in its first series, for its wood-engravings from drawings by Millais, Fred. Walker, Keene, Pinwell, Sandys, and other artists of eminence. Du Maurier's first contribution was in September 1860, illustrating an oriental tale in verse by Sir John Bowring. ”