MADAME CURIE, THE WOMAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2983, 17 May 1911, Page 91

MADAME CURIE, THE WOMAN.

A PERSONAL SKETCH. Much has been written about Madame Sklcdovska Curie, the discoverer of radium, and the most brilliant scientific woman in the world; but of the woman herself, her sorrows and her temperaments, less is known. That Madame Curie will yet enjoy the distinction of being the first woman member of the French Academy of Sciences there is little doubt. The Figaro considers there is no doubt of it, even among those whose votes were cast with the majority which excluded her. Madame Curie received the news of her rejection with that complete calm and self-possession which is her characteristic. The more intimate French im-

pressions of this wonderful -woman have been collected by the American Current Literature, and 1 take leave to reproduce some of these.

—A Lone, Cold Figure.—

This most wonderful ot the world's widows, as the Debats calls her, never shows her emotion or any trace of selfconsciousness. She lives in "seclusion" so absolute that, in spite of her universal fame, her personality is as unfamiliar as that of the Emir Bokhara, or that of the Grand Llama before Tibet was penetrated. Madame Curie is a stranger to the world which echoes her fame, nor do the efforts made from time to time to interpret her achievements throw the least light upon the mystery of her character. It is still a riddle.

Impressions of neutrality and colourlessness are derived by all these writers who have striven to convey, in the columns of the French press, some notion of the personality of the Polish woman who nas made herself one of the first physicists of the age. She looks to the Figaro like "a sometning washed out, the colour gone, the fire extinguished." Physically she is small. In aspect she is almost insignificant. "One is tempted to say her eyes are grey until a closer inspection brings out a trace of blue;. but in the end tUe hue of these frigid orbs relapses into a sheer neutrality." This neutrality of the eye matches a neutrality of the complevion, which is neither pale nor red rfor sallow, but faded. The hair, again, is neither auburn nor brown nor turning grey, but of the indefinite neutrality of the rest of personality. Coldness is the word, too, for her temperament, or the Figaro maligns the lady. She suggests "the passioidess spirit of pure science." In a voice quite low and free from the theatrical in tone and effect, Madame Curie elucidates to her Sorbonne classes the mysteries of that new knowledge which she has mastered, but which has not mastered her. Her manner is as cold as her aspect. She never waves her arms, long and slender, and graceful as they are. She never rises to her feet and paces ecitedly about her desk as did that genius of physics the late Professor Berthier. His epoch-making discoveries excited him, and he could not help imparting some of that excitement to an audience. Madame Curie announces the most wonderful and least expected of developments with the matter-of-factness of a business man reading off a statement of assets and She is never overwrought by labours in the laboratory, however prolonged. Her accents betray her Polish origin, _ but she expresses every idea in perfectly idiomatic French. In lucidity oi exposition she is unsurpassed. The subect of radium loses all mystery when she expounds it.

—The Best of Mothers.— Habits,., of frugality acquired in her youth, says the Debats, reveal themselves in her household. The world's greatest woman is one of the world's best mothers. She taught her little daughter Irene to sew. Eve, the youngest daughter, begins to show her mother's devotion to science. She has a tiny collection of radio-active elements, understood _to be of great financial value, whatever importanoe it may or may not possess to the physicist. Madame Curie herself makes the girls' dresses, cutting and fitting them with her own hands. She knits the mufflers worn, by her daughters, and she could, were that necessary, knit them stockings. The cooking is done by an elderly female servant, unless omelettes are on the morning's bill of fare, in which case Madame Curie makes the delicacy herself. She is an accomplished marketer, we read, and is a familiar sight to those in her neighbourhood who deal in fresh vegetables. Madame Curie also washes and irons with her own hands the more delicate pieces of lingerie worn by the members of her little family. She is, in short, domestic. —A Daughter of Revolution. — Like all the Poles who- grew up in the Warsaw that suffered under Czar Alexander, Marie Sklodovska imbibed a fierce and revolutionary patriotism. She was admitted into the secrets of many Polish revolutionary societies formed among the students, and there is an impression among her father's friends of that period that she wrote for one or two patriotic sheets. As the daughter of an impoverished educator, she could expect no fortune. At 18 she was earning her bread in the capacity of governess, Russia being the scene of her labours. This life, if we may trust the account in the Gaulois, proved wholly distasteful to the young Polish girl. She had the daughters of a Russian nobleman under her care, her time being spent in teaching French, Latin, music, and deportment to some very refractory children. At an unfortunate moment for herself the Government of St. Petersburg pried into the secrets of the patriotic societies of students at Warsaw. To avoid attendance as a witness against some of her father's pupils, Marie quitted Russia in disgrace, and made her way to Paris. —Poverty in Paris.—

The only practical knowledge brought by the Polish exile to the French metropolis had been obtained in her father's laboratory. Marie had not only remembered all the lessons taught in her tenderest years, but retained the passion for chemistry and for physics which won the applause of Mendeleieff. Besides this knowledge and enthusiasm, Marie had some 50 francs in cash. Her first residence in Paris was a garret, provided with a cot and a chair, but no table. Her food was black bread reinforced with milk. At no time during her residence in the bare and frigid garret could she afford herself such necessities as an umbrella or an extra pair of shoes. Her diet was bread and milk lor so long that, as she remarked with rteferenco 1., this experience later, she had U acquire afresh a taste for wine and meat. possibly, as the Gau'ofa

conjectures, these brisk stamped upoi

frame and features that .emaciated and weary look which has ever since characterised them. "She seems never to have been tender, or romantic, or impulsive, or ardent." The coldness and colourlessness of her manner and appearance reflects, it seems, the impressions of her starved and hopeless days. —Her Start in Life. — Marie Sklodovska f s one purpose was to get into a laboratory. Again and again she was. met with refusals even to consider her application for employment. She was a stranger, her father was in discredit for his political activity, and her appearance was against her. Through sheer persistence, as one account of her struggles has it, she was at last "taken on" to assist in preparing the furnace and the bottles for laboratory experiments. Before the end of her first week of service her wonderful knowledge of physics and _of chemistry had been recognised. She improvised expedients when the resources of the laboratory failed, doing this with an expertncsa that amazed Professor Lippman, titan in control of the Sorbonne's research work in the physical sciences. To him she was enabled at last to tell the etory of her physical trials and to moke known the manner in which she had become so proficient in laboratory work. He opened a correspondence with her father, and placed his ample facilities at her disposal. He introduced her at the same time to one of his most promising pupils, a young man ' named Pierre Curie. He shared the one enthusiasm of which Mane was capable. For a long time the young Polish girl could not entertain the idea of becoming the French physicist's bride. He was as poor as herself! For some years they experimented side by side in the Lippman laboratory with a view to - gaining some insight into the nature of electric radiation through rarefied gases. Pierre Curie became her inseparable companion, and in a few years he was her husband. Their ideals became something of a jest to thenlittle circle of friends. The two children were born, the standing of Curie in the world of science became solid, and at last the isolation of radium was announced to a bewildered world. The name of Curie sprang into fame.—T. P.'s Weekly.