Chapter XII: Illness and Eclipse

But his personal hopes of contributing further to science, or diffusing the knowledge learned, were destined to be sadly postponed. In the spring he left Mexico, and the telescope was returned to Flagstaff in May; but although he could stand observing day and night without sufficient sleep while stimulated by the quest, the long strain proved too much, and he came back to Boston nervously shattered. Such a condition is not infrequent with scholars who work at high speed, and although the diagnosis is simple the treatment is uncertain. The physicians put him to bed for a month in his father’s house in Brookline, a measure that he always thought a mistake, believing that he would not have collapsed so completely under a different regimen. The progress everyone knows who has seen it, a very slow regaining of strength, with ups and downs, and after much discouragement—in his case about three years—a return to normal health.

After the doctors let him up from bed he sought rest in divers places, but the progress was slow and uneven, as it must be in such cases. Naturally letters at this period are few, short and far between. Only two, written to his father, appear to have been preserved, one from Bermuda, January 22, 1898:

“Dear Father:

I enclose what I think you will like to see, a copy made for you of a
letter just received. _Festina lente_ is nature’s motto for me, and I
try to make _nulla vestigia retrorsum_.

Affectionately your son
Percival”

The copy enclosed is evidently of the letter from Professor Headland conveying Sir Robert Hart’s request to translate “Mars” into Chinese. The other letter is on January 17, 1899, with no place—date, and it says: “Was much better; now can’t sleep well. So it wags.”

A year later, although not yet recovered, he was so much improved as to plan with Professor Todd of Amherst an expedition to Tripoli to observe a total eclipse of the sun. They took a 24-inch lens, from the observatory at Amherst, with a very light tube for transportation in four joints that would slip inside one another, and a device for photographing the solar corona; the lens of the telescope being the largest yet used in such an expedition. Sending the apparatus by freight, they themselves sailed on the German Steamship _St. Paul_ from New York on January 17, 1900. He had regained his humor, if nothing else, for he heads his private journal of this exploit: “An Eclipse trip to Tripoli being the sequel to The Valet and the Valetudinarian”—not that he ever wrote anything under this last title, but it was a reference to what he had been through in the preceding two and a half years—and after inserting two flamboyant newspaper clippings, for which he was not responsible, he writes: “Further notices there were of which no notice need be taken; literary and professional murders all, of various degrees of atrocity.”

After a few days in London, where he exchanged comments on the spectrum of Mars with Sir William Huggins, he passed on to Paris, and then Marseilles and Costabella where his widowed sister, Katharine Roosevelt, was staying. The eclipse was not to occur until the end of May, but there was much to be done in setting up the instruments, at which he was not needed; so as he saw his sister off for Italy he also bade good-bye for a time to Professor Todd, who left him to look up the telescopic apparatus and get it in place at Tripoli, while he stayed to recuperate for three months on the Riviera.

Here he found William James who, with his wife, was on a like quest to recruit from a similar case of neurasthenia, and at the same time to prepare his Gifford lectures. To his father Percival wrote on April 7: “Professor William James is living here now and we see each other all the time. He is pleased at having just been elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, more for his children’s sake than his own. This when he thought he should never be able to work again, and he wanted them to feel that their father had done something. Now, however, he is stronger and polishes off some Gifford lectures daily, a bit of it.” They saw much of each other, being highly sympathetic physically and intellectually. Like himself, James had recovered, or not lost, his sense of humor, and quoted a remark he had heard “that ethics was a tardy consolation for the sins one had neglected to commit.” And Percival was impressed by his saying that he “considered Darwin’s greatness due to his great detail as increasing the probabilities; showing again how mere detail, mere bulk impresses, though probability be not furthered a bit.” The last part of the sentence may be Percival’s own conclusion rather than that of James, but it had clearly a bearing on his own minute study of the phenomena of Mars.

On the Riviera he made a number of pleasant acquaintances and he was well enough to enjoy seeing people; but, although he was writing a memoir for the American Academy on Venus, he was not yet up to really hard work. After trying in vain to think out mechanical explanations for the small ellipticity in the orbits of the planetary satellites he gave it up, and noted: “I actually am taking pleasure in chronicling this small beer (his solitary walks); pure thought proves so thorny to press.” On April 3d he writes to his father: “I am trying to catch up with you and grandfather _Sed longo intervallo_ so as to solace my solitary walks with fixed acquaintances.” Both of these forebears had been interested in botany. In fact he walked much alone, studying the trees, shrubs and insects, and he writes: “I can converse with plants because they don’t talk back, nor demand attention but accept it.”

The time for the eclipse was drawing near, so after going to Florence to spend a few days more with his sister, he sailed from Genoa on May 16; trans-shipped at Naples, and going ashore in Sicily and Malta while the steamer was in port, reached Tripoli on May 24th. Travelling to out-of-the-way places in the Mediterranean was not a rapid process, and Tripoli then belonged to Turkey; but he found everything prepared by Professor Todd in the grounds of the American Consulate, and, fortunately, when the eclipse occurred four days later the sky was clear and everything went well. He was amused by the comments of the ignorant. “The Arabs,” he wrote in his private journal, “the common folk, told their friends (beforehand) that the Christians lied, and when the affair came off, that they had no business to know being infidel.” But he was as always interested in their ways and habits, mousing about the town with our consul and others, learning about the Turkish troops, and the Tuaureg camel drivers, inspecting a bakery, a macaroni factory, threshing and the weekly fair.

On June 3rd they sailed by an Italian steamer for Malta, but he left it at Tunis to go to the ruins of Carthage, which impressed him greatly; catching the boat again at Biserta, and at Malta trans-shipping again for Marseilles, he made his way to Paris. There the exhibition was open, and among other things he found his exhibit from Flagstaff, “poor waif, in a corner of the Palais de l’Optique and in another place stood confronted by four of my own drawings of Mars, unlabelled, unsubscribed. Felt badly for the poor orphans.” He did not stay long, but went to England, and after spending a few days at the country house of some friends he had made on the Riviera, he sailed for home on July 4th. Shortly before leaving he had received telegrams telling of his father’s unexpected death under an operation, cutting another link with his earlier life.

As yet not well enough to resume his work, he hired a farm house at Chocorua, and settled there on August 3rd for the rest of the summer. He enjoyed seeing the friends and neighbors who spent their vacations there; but, like some other men of science incapacitated by illness, he turned his attention to a field other than his own. As on the Riviera, this was flowers, butterflies, and especially trees; but he studied them more systematically, and with fuller notes. In October he gives a list, covering more than three pages, of the trees and shrubs in the woods, fields and swamps about him in the order of their abundance. This interest he kept up in later years at Flagstaff, corresponding with Professor Charles S. Sargent, the Director of the Arnold Arboretum, and sending him specimens of rare or unknown varieties, some of which were named after him. So highly, indeed, did Sargent rate him that after Percival’s death he wrote a memoir of him in _Rhodora_,[14] which it is well to transcribe in full:

“That Percival Lowell took an active interest in trees was probably
not known to many persons, for he published only one botanical paper
and he had no botanical associates except in this Arboretum. It is not
surprising that a man with his active and inquiring mind brought up in
New England should, when he found himself in Arizona, want to know
something of the strange plants which grew everywhere about him and
which were so entirely unlike the plants which he had known as a boy
in Massachusetts, and later in Japan and Korea. The love of plants,
too, was in his blood and only needed the opportunity of this new
field to make itself felt.

“Percival Lowell’s great great grandfather, John Lowell, was one of
the original members of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting
Agriculture and its second President, serving from 1796 until his
death in 1802. He is less well known for his connection with rural
affairs than his son John Lowell, spoken of generally in his day as
“the Norfolk Farmer,” and a generous and successful promoter of
scientific agriculture and horticulture in Massachusetts, whom Daniel
Webster called “the uniform friend of all sorts of rural economy.” The
second John Lowell became a member of the Agricultural Society in 1816
and served from the time of his election until 1830 as its
Corresponding Secretary, and as one of the editors of its publication,
_The Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal_. During these
years articles by him on agriculture, horticulture and forestry are
found in almost every number. In volume v. published in 1819 there is
an important paper by John Lowell on “The Gradual Diminution of the
Forests of Massachusetts, and the importance of early attention to
some effectual remedy, with extracts from the work of M. Michaux on
the Forest Trees of North America.” Volume vii. contains articles from
his pen on “Some slight notice of the Larch tree (_Pinus Larix_),
known in various parts of the country under the several names of
Juniper, Hackmatack, and Larch”; on “Fruit Trees,” signed by the
Norfolk Gardener, and on “Raising the Oak from the Acorn and the best
way of doing it.” The last volume of this publication which appeared
in 1832, when he was seventy-one years old, contains an article by
John Lowell on “The Extraordinary Destruction of the last Year’s Wood
in Forest Trees and the probable Causes of it”; and on “Live Hedges
for New England.” The second John Lowell was active in establishing
and maintaining the Botanic Garden of Harvard College and was one of
the original members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. To
the first annual festival of the Horticultural Society held in the
Exchange Coffee House on State Street, September 19, 1829, he sent
from his greenhouses in Roxbury Orange-trees covered with flowers and
fruit and a bunch of grapes weighing three pounds.

“John Amory Lowell, the son of the second John Lowell and the
grandfather of Percival Lowell, was deeply interested in botany and in
1845, thirty years after his graduation from Harvard College, began
the collection of an herbarium and botanical library with the purpose
of devoting himself seriously to the study of plants. He had made
valuable collections and a large botanical library when the financial
troubles of 1857 forced him to abandon botany and devote himself again
to business affairs. His most valuable books were given by him to his
friend Asa Gray and now form an important part of the library of the
Gray Herbarium. His herbarium and his other botanical books were given
to the Boston Society of Natural History. John Amory Lowell, like his
father and grandfather, was a member of the Massachusetts Society for
Promoting Agriculture. He was succeeded by his son John Lowell, who in
turn was succeeded by his son, another John Lowell, who of the fifth
generation in direct descent from its second president is now a
Trustee of this Society.

“Percival Lowell’s love of plants certainly came to him naturally. I
first met him in the Arboretum many years ago examining the collection
of Asiatic Viburnums in which he was interested at that time, but it
was not until 1910 that he began to send specimens to the Arboretum,
including that of an Oak which he had found growing near his
observatory and which so far as it is possible to judge is an
undescribed species. Interest in this Oak led him to look for other
individuals and to extend his botanical explorations. During these he
visited Oak Creek Canyon, a deep cut with precipitous sides in the
Colorado plateau which heads about twenty miles south of Flagstaff and
carries in its bottom a small stream which finally finds its way into
the Verde northwest and not far from Camp Verde. Lowell appears to
have been the first botanist who visited the upper part, at least, of
this canyon where he found a number of interesting plants, notably
_Platanus Wrightii_ and _Quercus arizonica_, which before his
explorations were not known to extend into the United States from
Mexico beyond the canyons of the mountain ranges of southern Arizona
and New Mexico. In Oak Creek Canyon Lowell found a new Ash-tree
somewhat intermediate between _Fraxinus quadrangulata_ of the east and
_F. anomala_ of our southwestern deserts which will bear his name.
Later Lowell explored Sycamore Canyon which is west of Oak Creek
Canyon and larger and deeper than Oak Creek Canyon and, like it, cuts
through the Colorado plateau and finally reaches the Verde near the
mouth of Oak Creek.

“Juniperus in several species abound on the Colorado plateau, and
Lowell became deeply interested in these trees and was preparing to
write a monograph of our southwestern species. His observations on the
characters and altitudinal range of the different species, illustrated
by abundant material, have been of great service to me.

“Lowell’s only botanical paper, published in the May and June issues
of the _Bulletin of the American Geographic Society_ in 1909, is
entitled “The Plateau of the San Francisco Peaks in its Effect on Tree
Life.” In this paper, which is illustrated by photographs made by the
author of all the important trees of the region, he discusses the
altitudinal distribution of these trees, dividing his region into five
zones which he illustrates by a number of charts showing the
distribution of vegetation in each. It contains, too, an important and
interesting discussion of the influence on temperature and therefore
on tree growth of the larger body of earth in a plateau as compared
with a mountain peak where, on account of greater exposure, the earth
cools more rapidly.[15]

“A bundle of cuttings of what is probably a new species of Willow, to
obtain which Lowell had made a long and hard journey, with his last
letter and a photograph of the Willow, came only a few days before the
telegram announcing his death. Botany therefore occupied his thoughts
during his last days on earth.

“The death of Percival Lowell is a severe loss to the Arboretum. He
understood its purpose and sympathized with its efforts to increase
knowledge. Few collectors of plants have shown greater enthusiasm or
more imagination, and living as he did in what he has himself
described as “one of the most interesting regions of the globe” there
is every reason to believe that as a botanist Percival Lowell would
have become famous.”