50 Mary Somerville. 



thing was impossible ! Besides I did not yet know 

 anything definite about Algebra, so no more could 

 be done at that time ; but I never lost sight of an 

 object which had interested me from the first. 



I rose early, and played four or five hours, as 

 usual, on the piano, and had lessons from Corri, an 

 Italian, who taught carelessly, and did not correct a 

 habit I had of thumping so as to break the 

 strings; but I learned to tune a piano and mend the 

 strings, as there was no tuner at Burntisland. After- 

 wards I got over my bad habit and played the music 

 then in vogue : pieces by Pleyel, dementi, Steibelt, 

 Mozart, and Beethoven, the last being my favourite 

 to this day. I was sometimes accompanied on N 

 the violin by Mr. Thomson, the friend of Burns ; 

 more frequently by Stabilini ; but I was always too 

 shy to play before people, and invariably played 

 badly when obliged to do so, which vexed me. 

 * * * * * 



The prejudice against the theatre had been very 

 great in Scotland, and still existed among the rigid 

 Calvinists. One day, when I was fourteen or fifteen, 

 on going into the drawing-room, an old man sitting 

 beside my mother rose and kissed me, saying, " I 

 am one of your mother's oldest friends." It was 

 Home, the author of the tragedy of " Douglas." 

 He was obliged to resign his living in the kirk for 



