Everywhere, indeed, his
letters, which made the most of our intercourse, were full of the
broadest sympathy in pursuits which often were--but often were not--in
the same direction as his own lifelong studies. At times, too, the
sympathy broke out into the extreme of generosity. Thus, having
learned from me that certain very important and hitherto undescribed
anatomical structures would probably be found in serpents and frogs,
he tells me soon after that he has found them; also, that he has
discovered them in birds, and that he has been led finally to a series
of unlooked-for discoveries in the anatomy of the nerves of the frog;
and he wishes experiments made on living frogs to learn the
physiological use of the structures thus found. Then not long after he
proposes that as the first discovery came from this writer, he should
take and use the notes and drawings which recorded his own researches,
and should use them in a second paper. It is needless to say that this
was declined, and the results appeared under Wyman's name. It was
characteristic of the man, and was not the only time when I had to
thank him for the kindest offers of aid.
To see Dr. Wyman in his museum was one of the most pleasant
exhibitions of the man at his best. I well remember one Sunday
afternoon in May three years ago, when, walking in Cambridge with
H----, one of the most prominent of our great railway presidents--and,
better than this, a man notable for genial social qualities, high
culture and a broad range of the readiest sympathies--I proposed to
him to call on Wyman and ask him to show us the Archaeological Museum.
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