Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (1858) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...To this modest retreat in the rue des Bernardim regularly resorted Malesherbes, Duhamel, Lemonnier, Poivre, and other distinguished men, whom similarity of labors and opinions and long attachment united in the bonds of the closest intimacy; here also every learned stranger, particularly every botanist, was emulous of being introduced. The prolonged life of the good Tessier has left to us only the impression of the aged man; here he appeared as the young debutant. Andre Thouin was indebted to the two brothers for the origin of his botanical fortunes, and not a few besides, devoted upon similar grounds of gratitude and affection, enlarged the circle by which our celibataires were encompassed. Occupied in scrupulously fulfilling towards his elder brother the duties of a piety which might well be called filial, it is easily imagined with how poignant a grief Bernard was affected when a short malady bereft him of Antoine. He fell into a gloomy reverie, from which nothing seemed capable of arousing him. Seated alone at the once common fireside, his long meditation only then began to be interrupted by bitter reflections. He no longer quitted the house except to go to the church, the Jardin Royal or the Academy. The protracted life of Bernard condemned him to blindness; but those alleviations which he had ministered to Antoine were in turn supplied to himself by Laurent, the son of their eldest brother, who was, during many of his later years, the inmate of his house. Seated daily near this nephew, and superintending his studies, the old man, under the appearance of a tranquil reverie, became once more absorbed in his former pursuits; it was as a second phase of the same life, as a thought which revives and is perpetuated. Passing away thus, the...