Devoting himself next to optics, he produced memoirs which entitle him to a high place among the early, searchers after a true dynamical theory of light.
While his patroness lived in a convent of her own in Jerusalem, Rufinus, at her expense, gathered together a number of monks in a monastery on the Mount of Olives, devoting himself at the same time to the study of Greek theology.
Her husband, uxorious and devoting, delievered breakfast in bed to her on every weekend.
From that time I have spent the whole of my life within that monastery devoting all my pains to the study of the scriptures; and amid the observance of monastic discipline, and the daily charge of singing in the church, it has ever been my delight to learn or teach or write.
His programme included the collective ownership of the means of production and the international association of labour, but when in June 1899 he entered Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet of "republican defence" as minister of commerce he limited himself to practical reforms, devoting his attention to the improvement of the mercantile marine, to the development of trade, of technical education, of the postal system, and to the amelioration of the conditions of labour.