46 Mary Somerville. 



in denying all those privileges of education 

 to my sex which were so lavishly bestowed on 

 men. My liberal opinions, both in religion and 

 politics, have remained unchanged (or, rather, have 

 advanced) throughout my life, but I have never been 

 a republican. I have always considered a highly- 

 educated aristocracy essential, not only for govern- 

 ment, but for the refinement of a people. 



[After her winter in Edinburgh, my mother returned 

 to Burntisland. Strange to say, she found there, in an 

 illustrated Magazine of Fashions, the introduction to the 

 great study of her life. 



I was often invited with my mother to the tea- 

 parties given either by widows or maiden ladies who 

 resided at Burntisland. A pool of commerce used 

 to be keenly contested till a late hour at these 

 parties, which bored me exceedingly, but I there be- 

 came acquainted with a Miss Ogilvie, much younger 

 than the rest, who asked me to go and see fancy 

 works she was doing, and at which she was very 

 clever. I went next day, and after admiring her 

 work, and being told how it was done, she showed 

 me a monthly magazine with coloured plates of 

 ladies' dresses, charades, and puzzles. At the end 

 of a page I read what appeared to me to be simply 

 an arithmetical question ; but on turning the page I 



