136 
BRYCE. 
All I can attempt is to place before you m a few words 
the impression which he made upon me in tlie intercourse 
of private life. That impression was primarily the impres- 
sion of power. lie had a noble head, piercing eyes, a look 
full of strength — steady, direct, penetrating. This gaze, with 
its quiet poise and a sort of reflective depth about it, re- 
minded me of our other famous men of science of the last 
generation, Helmliolz and Adams, both mathematicians, and 
the latter also an astronomer. Nor is it fanciful to find that 
something which these three had in common is in the portrait 
also of one even greater — Sir Isaac Newton. 
Professor Newcomb’s conversation bore out what his aspect 
conveyed. Whatever subject he touched, what he said was 
weighty, for he had thought deeply on many things, some 
of them far removed from his own peculiar studies. He was 
always calm, lucid, and judicious. He saw things broadly, 
in their principles, and had that remarkable power of getting 
right at the heart of a, subject, which is one of the most sure 
indices of a superior mind. Whatever subject he talked on, 
it became interesting in his hands, and I found him as 
luminous and judicious in discussing political or economic 
questions as he was in his own field of science. The honors 
showered upon him had not affected his simplicity or made 
him self-conscious, and his conversation was not only easy 
and pleasant, but sometimes touched with humor. 
He struck me as one whose natural powers were so great 
and industry so unflagging that he must have attained emi- 
nence and distinction in any career to which he had devoted 
his talents. Pie might have been (so it seemed to me) a 
great engineer or a great financier; might have constructed 
vast works and piled up, had he cared for money, a huge 
fortune. But his mind was bent on higher things. 
The intensity with which he loved knowledge made him 
adhere through a long life to the path which he had chosen — 
that of a student who was devoted to science for its sake, and 
who counted the discovery of new truths to he the finest 
kind of work and the highest kind of enjoyment. In this 
respect, as well as in the simplicity and uprightness of his 
life and in the courage with which he bore up against a 
