The Sage of Biscayne Bay 77


at a book tea at the park in 1942, held to add volumes to the Simpson
Park library.6 Also framed and on permanent display at the park is
a poem by Stephen Cochran Singleton entitled Charles Torrey
Simpson, In Memoriam that ends with the lines, "All... are richer far
today because this man... /Dwelt once among us and interpreted for
us/ The messages of rock and tree and flower."
 Early in 1932, the year of his death, the 'Old Man's' last book,
Florida Wild Life, appeared. The president of the Macmillan Company
called upon Simpson and insisted upon its publication, an honor Simpson
said that he could not resist.65 It is to be hoped that in 1996, the year when
the City of Miami celebrates its one hundredth birthday, and the history
of the area will be under more than the usual scrutiny, Simpson's South
Florida books will again be in print, read and appreciated as they so
richly deserve.
 At the end of the final chapter of Florida Wild Life, entitled "In
Memoriam," Simpson expresses for the last time his deeply-felt concern
for the future of wild life in words as appropriate to today as to that
era:

 Looking back to the days when South Florida was a beautiful
 wilderness filled with magnificent wild life and then contemplat-
 ing the wreck of today is enough to sicken the heart of a lover
 of nature, yes, even of any sensible person who has a true
 valuation of the useful and beautiful. If things go on here as
 they have done in the past few years this can only end in the
 destruction of all that is lovely and of value that nature has
 bestowed on us.... But let us not bring down the curtain in ut-
 ter despair, let us not turn away without hope from this scene
 of ruin and desolation. Within the last few years there has come
 an awakening, a realization of the value of beauty for beauty's
 sake, and intelligent people are beginning to ask if it is wise to
 utterly destroy everything nature has so lavishly given us for
 the sake of gain.6

 In December 1932, at age eight-six, while at work at his desk
at the Sentinels, Dr. Simpson suffered a fatal heart attack. The
funeral was held in his garden. It is reported that at one point in the
service, violin music came from a distance, as if the wind in the trees
were bidding him good-bye. Hundreds of mourners were in atten-