ABSTRACT
The death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the general reader. Fresnel had done much; Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a principle that still seems unimprovable: and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in and brought to a comparable perfection the revolving light, a not unnatural jealousy and much painful controversy rose in France. But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what the people have lost, what the people now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. It was perhaps another Celtic trait that his affections and emotions, passionate as these were, and liable to passionate ups and downs, found the most eloquent expression both in words and gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone through him and broke forth in imagery, like what the people read of Southern races.
