The Ladies' Column.

Otago Witness, Issue 1243, 25 September 1875, Page 19

The Ladies' Column.

STORY OF THE LIFE OF MARY SOMERVILLE. Mary Somerville was a remarkable woman. She had a masculine intellect with a feminine soul. She was a model wife and m»ther ; fulfilled every social duty (and she saw much of the best Enijlijih and continental society) and yet had time to perform a prodigious amount of intellectual work. She was great as an astronomer — great as a mathematician — great in nearly every department of abstract science. La Place said of her that she was the only person who uudemood his great work. She was the constant adviser and coadjutor of tho Herschells, and Brougham paid her the compliment of saying that she was almost the only Person capable of undertaking and triumphantly completing a treatise on the Meclianique Celeste. Humboldt extolled her scientific discoveries and resoarches in terms that applied to a less remarkable person, would have seemed tho grossest fltJttery. The record of the life_ of such a person could hardly fail to be interesting ; a3 told by herself, it has an inexpressible charm. She was born at Jedburgh. Scotland, the 26th of December, 1780. Her mother taught her to read her Bible and say her prayers morning and evening. " When seven or eight years old," she sayß, " I began to be useful ; pulled the fruit for preserving, shelled the peas and beans, fed tho poultry and looked after the dairy." In due time she learned tho catechism and attended the public examinations in the kirk.

CHILDHOOD.

At ten she was sent to a boarding school, where, she says, she was " utterly wretched." At thirteen she went to Edinburgh, where she developed remarkable persistency in learning. Returning to Burnt Island, she gave herself up unreservedly up to- study. She had been shown by a friend a monthly magazine with coloured plates of ladies' dresses, charades and puzzles. "At the end of the page," she says, " I read what appeared to me to be simply an arithmetical question ; but on turning the page I was surprised to Bee strange-looking lines mixed with letters, chiefly x's and y's, and asked, ' What is that?' 'Oh! 5 said Miss Ogilvie, 'it is a kind of arithemetic, they call it algebra, but I can tell you nothing about it.' And ws talked about other things, but on going home I thought I would see if any of our books could tell me what was meant by algebra. " She spent the rest of the bummer in playing the piano and learning Greek enough to read Xenophon and part of Herodotus. Then a landscape painter opened an academy for ladies in Edinburgh, and she attended it and mode somo progress. Hearing him advise some ladies to study Euclid's Elements of Geometry, "the foundation not only of perspective, but of astronomy and all mechanical science," she thought it was just what she wanted ; but howcouldsheobtainit? Euclid and algebra seemed equally unattainable, but she never lost sight of them. Still she played on the piano, and learned to tnno it and mend the string*, went to a pastry cook's and learned the art of cooking, practised her painting, and in due time the great thing came. A Mr Crew, tutor to her

youngest brother, cape to live with them. He was a simple, good-natured man," 0^ id she ventured to ask him about algebra and geometry, nnd begged him to buy her something elementary on these subjects. Thus she got her Euclid and her algebra, and " went along with courage and with assiduity." But other duties must be attended to. So she rose early, played the piano, " mended her clothes," sat up late reading Euclid, till, being found oat, her candle was taken from her and she was thrown upon her memory. Then her father comes home and says: "Peg, *c must put a stop to this, rr we shall have Mary in a straight- jackef one of these days. Thero was X , who went mad about the longitude." SIABRIED LIFK.

In 1804 she was married to Samuel Greig, a Russian Consul, with whom she lived only a few years, when Bhe became & widow. Her husband did not sympathise with her intellectual pursuits, but, dn the contrary, discouraged them. In 1812 she Was married again, this time to William Somervillej her cousin, an accomplished scholar: and highly cultivated ftfld worthy man, she lived most happily. The biographer says of him : "He warmly entered into all her ideas, encouraging her ieal for study to the utmost, and affording her every facility for it in his power. His love and admiration for her were unbounded; he frankly admitted he* superiority to himself, and many of cw* friends can bear witnens to the honest pride and gratification which she always testified in the name and honours she attained." She herself always speaks of him in the tenderest manner, and in her pnwuitsi rfiesays, "through the kindness and liberality of mv husband I had every encouragement " Manyßtudies, as mineraldgy and gjology, they pursued togethe*: and from many little incidents in the recollections we gather that the long union was in all respects a happy one.

HER GREAT WORK, Her Great Work, the treatise on the " M cchaniqtte Celeste," was commenced in 1837. This is her account of how she entered upon her task, and the difficulties under which she laboured : ." I rose early, made such arrangements *iftrf««r4 to my chiidreu jA Oc f f Am u y

affairs that I had time to write afterwards ; not, however without many interruptions. A man can always command his time on the plea of business ; a woman is not allowed any such excuse. At Chelsea, I was alwa}'s supposed to be at home, and as my friends and acquaintances came so far out of the way on purpose to see me, it would have been unkind and ungenerous not to receive them. Neverthelesss, I was sometimes annoyed when in the midst of a difficult problem some one would enter and say, ' I have come to spend a few hours with you.' However, I lerned by habit to leave a subject and resume it again at once, like putting a mark into a book I might be reading. Frequently, I hid my papers as the bell announced a visitor, lest any one should discover my secret."

CLOSING YEARS.

The closing years of her life were bright and cheerful. Her wonderful intellect was unclouded to the last. She was beloved and revered by all. She continued to take a deep interest in current events to the end. In her ninetysecond year, she writes :

" I am still able to ride out for several hours ;I am extremely deaf ; my memory of ordinary events is failing but not for mathematical or physical subjects.' l In the same year, the last of her life, she writes : " Though far advanced in years, I take as lively an interest as ever in passing events. ' I regret that I shall not live to know the results of the expedition to determine the currents of the ocean, the distance of the earth from the sun determined by the transit of Venus, and the source of the most renowned of rivers, the discovery of which will immortalise the name of Dr. Livingstone." Her daughter adds : "My mother's old age was a thoroughly happy one. Serene and cheerful, full of life and activity, as far as her strength permitted, she had none of the infirmities of age except difficulty in hearing, which prevented her from joining in general conversation. Her last occupations continued to the actual day of her death, were the revision and completion of a treatise which she had written years before, on the Theory of Differences, and the study of a book on Quaternions: She closes by saying : •My mother died in sleep on the morning of the 29th of November, 1872. Her remains rest in the English Campo Santo, Naples.' "