Note 5 — Chapter XXIV · THE SOLILOQUY OF PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN.—"GRAVITATION IS THE BEGINNING AND GRAVITATION IS THE END: ALL EARTHLY BODIES KNEEL TO GRAVITATION."

Mr. Drury can not claim to have recorded verbatim Prof. Vaughn's remarks, but has endeavored to give the substance. His language was faultless, his word selections beautiful, his soliloquy impressive beyond description. Perhaps Drury even misstated an idea, or more than one, evolved then by the great mind of that patient man. Prof. Daniel Vaughn was fitted for a scientific throne, a position of the highest honor; but, neglected by man, proud as a king, he bore uncomplainingly privations most bitter, and suffered alone until finally he died from starvation and neglect in the city of his adoption. Some persons are ready to cry, "Shame! Shame!" at wealthy Cincinnati; others assert that men could not give to Daniel Vaughn, and since the first edition of Etidorhpa appeared, the undersigned has learned of one vain attempt to serve the interests of this peculiar man. He would not beg, and knowing his capacities, if he could not procure a position in which to earn a living, he preferred to starve. The only bitterness of his nature, it is said, went out against those who, in his opinion, kept from him such employment as returns a livelihood to scientific men; for he well knew his intellect earned for him such a right in Cincinnati. Will the spirit of that great man, talented Daniel Vaughn, bear malice against the people of the city in which none who knew him will deny that he perished from cold and privation? Commemorated is he not by a bust of bronze that distorts the facts in that the garments are not seedy and unkempt, the figure stooping, the cheek hollow and the eye pitifully expressive of an empty stomach? That bust modestly rests in the public library he loved so well, in which he suffered so uncomplainingly, and starved so patiently.

J. U. L.