Page:Charles von Hügel (1903 memoir).djvu/58



No one can survey Hügel's life-work without astonishment at the great diversity of his interests and occupations, at the energy with which he applied himself, often simultaneously, to subjects remote from one another, and at the rich harvest which his untiring labour brought to maturity. In the department of horticulture, Hügel has carried the torch of progress as no one else has done within the limits of our fatherland. Though in the course of time the strongest impulses seem to pass away, so that it is only the retrospect of the historian which keeps before the memory of a new generation the forces which moved its predecessor, yet traces of Hügel's activity remain in evidence to the present day. Numerous sub-tropical plants, introduced by him, adorn the gardens of the world; lovely pleasure-grounds, in different places in Europe, testify to his artistic taste; the Horticultural Society of Vienna gratefully acknowledges him as its creator, and honours in him the highest example of the cultivator and the friend of flowers and of gardens. This bright example will give the Society strength to overcome the untoward circumstances under which, through no fault of its own, it now suffers, and to follow with renewed vigour that lofty path which its founder traced out for it.

With regard to his activity as investigator and writer in the most different departments of geography, it should be noted in particular that his contemporaries, especially the English, did not stint in their acknowledgment of his merits. If the geographical literature of our day considers him but little, the reason is that in course of time subsequent discoveries have left many results behind them. But his activity, like all other activity, must be judged from the standpoint of the time to which it belongs; and I am firmly