After the failure on the part
of one of his friends to attain a deserved object of just ambition, he
wrote to me to state his own extreme regret; and this not once, but
thrice, as if he was haunted by the sorrow of another's
disappointment. At times he was full of the most boyish spirit of
jesting, as when in 1862 he wrote to me grieving over the secession of
Virginia, because we had both of us thus lost our easiest supply of
rattlesnakes. Then he rejoiced over the fact that we still had the
bull-frog; and in an another note regrets that the rattlesnakes had
not been allowed to vote on the question of seceding.
As I write I pause to turn over these records of a dearly-valued
friendship. They begin years ago with words of encouragement as to
certain investigations in which both of us felt interest. Here and
there they touch on matters of social or personal value, but for the
most part they deal only with science. I used to wonder in those days,
and still am surprised anew as again I turn over these letters, at the
amount of what I might call suggestiveness in Wyman. He replies, for
example, in one letter to the gift of a scientific essay, and then in
a postscript runs off over eight pages of comment, explanation and
novel suggestions which put the subject in a new light; while every
here and there, amidst the wealth of scientific illustration and
useful hints given to aid another's work, there is some pause to
express a courteous doubt of his own opinions.
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