Читать книгу Percival Lowell — an afterglow - Wrexie Louise Leonard - Страница 12

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Dr. Lowell himself has said, "How little the momentary living counts with the actual life"; but this was a paradox, for with him every moment counted. He was indefatigable. To those associated with him in his work he appeared never to withdraw from mathematics and astronomy—yet he found time for everything. His daily motto was "not the possible but the impossible." That he could indulge in and accomplish what he did in so short a life, comparatively, is astounding. In suggesting that anything should be done, even a trivial matter, he always added "at once!" Procrastination and he were strangers. When he bethought himself to publish an essay or a bulletin it was "no sooner said than done." His assistants were swept along in their various works on the crest of the wave of his enthusiasm. He was buoyant with strength, ambition, love, sincerity, nobleness of purpose, in fact, all that is highest in life. He was a dynamic force, yet gentle as a child. Indeed, his strongest characteristic was kindness of heart. Ever on the alert was he for deeds of kindness and for unapplauded service to his fellow man.

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; and he has left, for us, a full record of his reasons for so thinking. It is not essential that one should agree with him, or have his point of view in order to enjoy his utterances. All that he himself would have asked of his readers was an acknowledgment, actual or virtual, of his honesty of purpose. He went so far as to say in his final lecture tour through the Northwest:—"That Mars is inhabited we have absolute proof."

His successors in this sublime investigation assuredly will be guided by the same love of scientific truth that animated him. He has left in store all the material resources with which to build an enduring monument. Filled by the warmth of his fire; thrilled by his achievements, with eye single towards the discovery of "the light that shifts, the glare that drifts"—which is truth itself—we rest content in the thought that those who follow in his field will keep clear, widen and extend the scientific trail in which he was the master-pioneer.

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