M. Victor Lavalle tells us of that historic
collision (en plane) on the flank of Hecla between Herrera, then
a pillar of the Spanish school, and the man destined to confute
his theories and lead him intellectually captive. Even through
the years, the immense laugh of Lavalle as he sustains the
Spaniard's wrecked plane, and cries: "Courage! I shall not fall
till I have found Truth, and I hold you fast!" rings like the
call of trumpets. This is that Lavalle whom the world, immersed
in speculations of immediate gain, did not know nor suspect--the
Lavalle whom they adjudged to the last a pedant and a theorist.
The human, as apart from the scientific, side (developed in his
own volumes) of his epoch-making discoveries is marked with a
simplicity, clarity, and good sense beyond praise. I would
specially refer such as doubt the sustaining influence of
ancestral faith upon character and will to the eleventh and
nineteenth chapters, in which are contained the opening and
consummation of the Tellurionical Records extending over nine
years.
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