M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James Watt. ^1h 



his more distant relatives, less discerning, did not share in 

 these hopes. His aunt Mrs Muirhead, sitting with him one 

 evening at the tea-table, said, " James, I never saw such an 

 idle boy ! Take a book or employ yourself usefully. For the 

 last half hour you have not spoken a word, but taken off the 

 lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and 

 now a silver spoon over the steam ; watching how it rises from 

 the spout, and catching and counting the drops of water formed 

 by condensation." It appears that when thus blamed his active 

 mind was engaged in investigating the condensation of steam. 



Who among us, if we had been placed in the same circum- 

 stances as Mrs Muirhead, would not in the year 1750 have re- 

 sorted to the same language .'' But the world since that time 

 has advanced, and our knowledge has increased. Moreover, 

 when I shall speedily explain that the principal discovery of 

 oiu" associate consisted in a particular method of converting 

 steam into water, Mrs Muirhead's reproaches will appear to us 

 in a very different light ; the boy pondering before the tea- 

 kettle will be viewed as the great engineer preparing disco- 

 veries which were soon to immortalize him ; and it cannot but 

 appear remarkable that the words condensation of steam should 

 come, as it were, naturally to present themselves in the history 

 of the infancy of Watt. I have the more willingly alluded 

 to this singular anecdote, because, for its own sake, it richly 

 merits preservation. And, as the occasion has presented it- 

 self, let us impress on youth that it was not modesty alone 

 which prompted the response of Newton, when, in reply to a 

 certain great personage who inquired how the principle of 

 gravity was discovered, he answered, " By always thinking of 

 it .'" Let us pomt out, in these simple words of the great au- 

 thor of the Brincipia, what is the true secret of men of genius. 



The extraordinary felicity of anecdote with which our as- 

 sociate, for fifty years, delighted all those with whom he asso- 

 ciated, very early developed itself. The proof of this vnW be 

 found in a few lines which I extract from an unpublished note 

 written in the year 1798 by Mrs Marion Campbell, the cousin 

 and youthful companion of the celebrated engineer.* " He 



* I am indebted for this curious document to my friend Mr James Watt 

 of Solio. Thanks to tlie profoimd veneration he has preserved for the me- 



