4 Mary Somerville. 



She met with unbounded kindness from men of science 

 of all countries, and most profound was her gratitude to 

 them. Modest and unpretending to excess, nothing 

 could be more generous than the unfeigned delight she 

 shewed in recognising the genius and discoveries of others ; 

 ever jealous of their fame, and never of her own. 



It is not uncommon to see persons who hold in youth 

 opinions in advance of the age in which they live, but who 

 at a certain period seem to crystallise, and lose the faculty 

 of comprehending and accepting new ideas and theories ; 

 thus remaining at last as far behind, as they were once 

 in advance of public opinion. Not so my mother, who 

 was ever ready to hail joyfully any new idea or theory, 

 and to give it honest attention, even if it were at variance 

 with her former convictions. This quality she never lost, 

 and it enabled her to sympathise with the younger gene- 

 ration of philosophers, as she had done with their pre- 

 decessors, her own contemporaries. 



Although her favourite pursuit, and the one for which 

 she had decidedly most aptitude, was mathematics ; yet 

 there were few subjects in which she did not take in- 

 terest, whether in science or literature, philosophy or 

 politics. She was passionately fond of poetry, her es- 

 pecial favourites being Shakespeare and Dante, and 

 also the great Greek dramatists, whose tragedies she 

 read fluently in the original, being a good classical 

 scholar. She was very fond of music, and devoted much 

 time to it in her youth, and she painted from nature with 

 considerable taste. The latter was, perhaps, the recrea- 

 tion in which she most delighted, from the opportunity 

 it afforded her of contemplating the wonderful beauty 

 of the world, which was a never-failing source of in- 

 tense enjoyment to her, whether she watched the 



