WOMEN AS INSPIRERS 369 



While in a fit of despondency and imagining his friends 

 had forgotten him, Galileo, in a moment of bitterness, 

 wrote in a letter to his daughter: "My name is erased 

 from the book of the living. " "Nay," came at once Sister 

 Celeste 's cheering reply, ' ' say not that your name is struck 

 de libro viventium, for it is not so ; neither in the greater 

 part of the world nor in your own country. Indeed, it 

 seems to me that, if for a brief moment your name and 

 fame were clouded, they are now restored to greater bright- 

 ness, at which I am much astonished, for I know that gen- 

 erally Nemo propheta acceptus est in patria sua. I am 

 afraid, however, if I begin quoting Latin, I shall fall into 

 some barbarism. But, of a truth, you are loved and 

 esteemed here more than ever." 1 



How much Sister Celeste was to her father in every way 

 was not known until after her premature death in her 

 thirty-fourth year. He was never the same man after- 

 ward. Disconsolate and broken, he fancied he heard the 

 voice of the daughter he so fondly loved resounding 

 through the house. Brooding over his great loss, the heart- 

 broken old man writes to a friend in words of infinite 

 pathos, "Mi sento continuamente chiamare della mia diletta 

 figlioula I continually hear myself called by my dearly 

 beloved daughter." The eighth of January, 1642, he an- 

 swered her call and went to join her in a better world. 



Two other noted investigators, one of them a contempo- 

 rary of Galileo, owed much to the inspiration and encour- 

 agement which they received from women. These were 

 Descartes and Leibnitz. And the women that had the 

 most influence on them were representatives of royal fami- 

 lies, who were famous in their day for their love and 

 knowledge and the extent of their intellectual attainments. 



One of the most noted of these was Elizabeth of Bohemia, 

 Princess Palatine. She was the favorite pupil of Descartes, 

 and it was to her that he dedicated his great work, Prin- 

 i Op. cit. ; p. 404. 



