Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/13



object in the preparation of this biography is to establish the claim of subject to a place; among the greatest benefactors of his race; and to demonstrate, especially to the youth of his beloved country, how a man may be both great and good, mighty in mind and pure in heart. I have endeavoured fitly to show how he persisted in the path of duty even when it led to poverty and exile; how he threw into any work he undertook his whole heart; and how, after a life of exceptional fidelity to earthly obligation, as a Christian philosopher he met and triumphed over death.

Much matter of value to such a memoir perished during the war, though more remained than I have as yet been able satisfactorily to use. From a mass of letters and other documents collected during several years by my sister, Mrs. James R. Werth, this volume has been mainly been made up; but the limits to which I felt obliged to confine myself have excluded not a little I wished it to embrace. Rh