160 
PUTNAM. 
I suppose that the writing of this romance, as well as his 
investigations in psychic phenomena, gave to Dr. Newcomb 
both pleasure and rest. I never saw that he was vain of 
such contributions, as men are apt to be with a vocation of 
great significance and avocations of slight. — the writer of 
prose, with his occasional poem, for instance. But, then, 
I never saw in Dr. Newcomb any symptom of vanity what- 
ever. Furthest removed from it was his naively grateful 
appreciation of appreciation, especially the warm, direct, and 
unaffected word. 
These diversions, after all, formed but a slight fraction of 
his great employment, and this latter was above all remark- 
able for its concentration and the unitv of its aim. If 
“happiness consists in the conscious pursuit of a consistent 
purpose,” his scientific life had within itself the certainty of 
happiness without any need of diversion. 
It must have had also the incessant uplift of the subject 
itself. To be on easy terms with the stars! — There is no 
hierarchy among the sciences; there is, I suppose, no science 
which is less than ennobling; but in astronomy there 
must, to a mind sufficiently large, be something still enlarg- 
ing — the magnitude of the dimensions involved, the aspect 
of the universal and persistent reign of law, the subordination 
of the lesser to the greater, the very background of immen- 
sity, depth beyond depth, splendor above splendor. To 
Carlyle, who had somewhat studied astronomy, the percep- 
tion of these things was, if not disquieting, neither calming 
nor orderly. With Newcomb the effect of the profounder 
studies, completely scientific, was distinctly so. “Carlyle” 
(remarks John Burroughs), “seemed always to see man and 
human life in their sidereal relations.” So, no doubt, did 
Newcomb, hut in the reign of law Carlyle saw also the 
tyranny of magnitude, and beside and beyond the depth and 
the splendor he saw “terror upon terror.” To Newcomb the 
reign of law was universal, but for that very reason cause 
of assurance, and his calmness before the great truths of 
nature which came within his ken was coupled with a faith 
in the benignity of those which did not. 
