Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/204

190 awaiting his death When Maury determined to leave the service of the United States, he bade his secretary (Mr. Thomas Harrison), write his resignation. That true and loyal heart, which had served and loved him for almost twenty years, and whose fluent pen had rendered him such willing service, refused its office now; and/ presenting the unfinished paper with one hand, he covered his eyes with the other, and exclaimed, with a choking voice and gathering tears, 'I cannot write it, sir!' He knew it was the death-warrant to his scientific life—the cup of hemlock that would paralyse and kill him in his pursuit after the knowledge of nature and of nature's laws."

When it became known in Europe that he had resigned his place in the Federal Service, he was solicited to become the guest of Russia in the following letter from the Grand Duke Constantine, Grand Admiral of Russia, and brother to the Czar.

The news of your having left a service which is so much indebted to your great and successful labours, has made a very painful impression on me and my companions-in-arms. Your indefatigable researches have unveiled the great laws which rule the winds and currents of the ocean, and have placed your name amongst those which will ever be mentioned with feelings of gratitude and respect, not only by professional men, but by all those who pride themselves in the great and noble attainments of the human race.

That your name is well-known in Russia I need scarcely add, and though "barbarians" as we are still sometimes called, we have been taught to honour in your person disinterested and eminent services to science and mankind. Sincerely deploring the inactivity into which the present political whirlpool in your country has plunged you, I deem