Later Life
As a widow, Mary Delany spent a lot of time with the Margaret Bentinck, Dowager Duchess of Portland, a close friend. The two shared a kinship in botany, often going out to look for specific specimens. It was during her stay with the Duchess that Mary became acquainted with two well-known botanists of the time Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. This contact with the botanists only encouraged Mary's interest in botany and also encouraged the knowledge on which many of her flower paper-cuttings are based.
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Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)