Elizabeth A. Bernays  

I played my little part in the bumpy progress of a field of knowledge, and like most of the players, will be forgotten as the years pass.  Tiny points of light like a mass of glowworms in a cave, each living briefly and passing on. From time to time a flashlight enters, a Darwin, who sees the bigger picture and dares to tell the world.  And the world worries, or thrills with the insights, delights in the ideas, loves itself the more.

Who cannot be excited by the busy green of endless forest leaves, expectant orange and spotted whites of a tiger lily, dappled light on forest floor, summer buzzing of cicadas, deceptively aimless flight of a butterfly, a squirrel foraging in the tree tops? I feel this gift of life, this gift of sight and hearing, this gift of knowledge, this short time to take it in. And so I rest here in the splendor of a warm dark forest, exploiting as best I can, all my senses, my memories, my small understandings and my sense of being alive in the world.