378 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



two women, apart from the assistance they gave to a loved 

 husband and an idolized brother, in the labors that made 

 them so famous, both achieved distinction for their con- 

 tributions to the sciences which they individually culti- 

 vated with such splendid results. And had they elected 

 to devote all their time to scientific research, instead of 

 giving the greater part of it to those to whom they were 

 so devotedly attached, who can tell how much more bril- 

 liant would have been their achievements and how much 

 greater would have been the fame they would have won for 

 themselves. Both of them were dowered in an eminent 

 degree with taste and talent for science, and had they 

 chosen to make it the sole object of their life work, there 

 can be no doubt that their personal contributions to natural 

 history and astronomy would have been far greater than 

 they were. As it was, they were so overshadowed by those 

 for whom they labored with such unselfishness and loyalty 

 that the real value of their work is too often forgotten 

 when there is question of the scientific triumphs of Louis 

 Agassiz and Sir William Herschel. 



But they willed it so. They gladly effaced themselves 

 that those whom they loved with such a deep and abiding 

 love might shine the more brightly in the firmament of 

 science. They preferred to spend and be spent in strength- 

 ening the great workers and leaders with whose lives their 

 own were so thoroughly identified "Inspiring them with 

 courage, keeping faith in their own ideas alive, in days of 

 darkness 



'When all the world seems adverse to desert.' " 



Both of these noble women had the same quality in com- 

 mon absolute devotion and unswerving faith in those to 

 whose success and happiness they had dedicated their lives. 

 They sought nothing for themselves, they thought nothing 

 of themselves. They both had, to borrow the idea of an- 



