Mary Somerville

“ Even when the sun is eighteen degrees below the horizon, a sufficient portion of light remains to show that at the height of thirty miles it is still dense enough to reflect light. The atmosphere scatters the sun’s rays, and gives all the beautiful tints and cheerfulness of day. It transmits the blue light in greatest abundance; the higher we ascend, the sky assumes a deeper hue; but, in the expanse of space, the sun and stars must appear like brilliant specks in profound blackness. ”

“ But I must say that no one ever met with such kindness as I have done. I never had an enemy. I have never been of a melancholy disposition; though depressed sometimes by circumstances, I always rallied again; and although I seldom laugh, I can laugh heartily at wit or on fit occasion. The short time I have to live naturally occupies my thoughts. In the blessed hope of meeting again with my beloved children, and those who were and are dear to me on earth, I think of death with composure and perfect confidence in the mercy of God. ”

“ Such pursuits, while they ennoble the mind, at the same time inculcate humility, by showing that there is a barrier which no energy, mental or physical, can ever enable us to pass: that, however profoundly we may penetrate the depths of space, there still remain innumerable systems, compared with which, those apparently so vast must dwindle into insignificance, or even become invisible; and that not only man, but the globe he inhabits—nay, the whole system of which it forms so small a part—might be annihilated, and its extinction be unperceived in the immensity of creation. ”

“ Count Camillo Cavour, then Minister of the Interior, was the only great statesman Italy ever produced in modern times. His premature death is deplorably felt at the present day. He was a real genius, and the most masterly act of his administration was that of sending an army to act in concert with the French and English in the Crimean war. By it he at once gave Italy the rank of an independent European power, which was the first step towards Italian unity. He was delightful and cheerful in society, and extremely beloved by his family and friends. ”

“ The stability of our system was established by La Grange, 'a discovery,' says Professor Playfair, 'that must render the name for ever memorable in science, and revered by those who delight in the contemplation of whatever is excellent and sublime. After Newton's discovery of the elliptical orbits of the planets, La Grange's discovery of their periodical inequalities is without doubt the noblest truth in physical astronomy ”

“ Machinery does not create force; it only enables us to turn the forces of nature to the best advantage; it is by the force of wind or falling water that our corn is ground, and the steam engine owes its power to the force of heat and chemical action. As force cannot be created, neither can it be annihilated. It may be dispersed in various directions, and subdivided so as to become evanescent to our perceptions; it may be balanced so as to be in abeyance, or become potential as in static electricity; but the instant the impediment is removed the force is manifested by motion ”

“ FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE TO WORONZOW GREIG, ESQ.
Venice, 21st July, 1843.
I most sincerely rejoice to hear that Agnes and you have gone to the Rhine, as I am confident a little change of air and scene will be of the greatest service to you both.... We are quite enchanted with Venice; no one can form an idea of its infinite loveliness who has not seen it in summer and in moonlight. I often doubt my senses, and almost fear it may be a dream. ”

“ The consequences being so dreadful, it is natural to inquire, what proof exists that creation will be preserved from such a catastrophe? For nothing can be known from observation, since the existence of the human race has occupied but a point in duration, while these vicissitudes embrace myriads of ages. ”

“ Other two groups between the constellations of the Shield and Ophiuchus stand out like promontories of intense brilliancy in the dark space that separates the starry streams of the Milky Way.
The distance of the fixed stars is too great to admit of their exhibiting a sensible disc, but they must be spherical if gravitation pervades all space, as there is every reason to believe it does. With a powerful telescope the stars are like points of light: their occultations by the moon are therefore instantaneous. ”

“ Besides the mass of the sun is immensely greater than those of the planets; and as their inequalities bear the same ratio to their elliptical motions as their masses do to that of the sun, their mutual disturbances only increase or diminish the eccentricities of their orbits by very minute quantities; consequently the magnitude of the sun's mass is the principal cause of the stability of the system. There is not in the physical world a more splendid example of the adaptation of means to the accomplishment of the end, than is exhibited in the nice adjustment of these forces. ”

“ She met with unbounded kindness from men of science of all countries, and most profound was her gratitude to them. Modest and unpretending to excess, nothing could be more generous than the unfeigned delight she shewed in recognising the genius and discoveries of others; ever jealous of their fame, and never of her own.
It is not uncommon to see persons who hold in youth opinions in advance of the age in which they live, but who at a certain period seem to crystallise, and lose the faculty of comprehending and accepting new ideas and theories ”

“ I had very great delight in the Campagna of Rome; the fine range of Apennines bounding the plain, over which the fleeting shadows of the passing clouds fell, ever changing and always beautiful, [Pg 240] whether viewed in the early morning, or in the glory of the setting sun, I was never tired of admiring; and whenever I drove out, preferred a country drive to the more fashionable Villa Borghese. One day Somerville and I and our daughters went to drive towards the Tavolata, on the road to Albano. We got out of the carriage, and went into a field, tempted by the wild flowers. ”

“ There is a constant tendency to an equal diffusion of heat, since every body in nature is giving and receiving it at the same instant; each will be of uniform temperature when the quantities of heat given and received during the same time are equal—that is, when a perfect compensation takes place between each and all the rest. Our sensations only measure comparative degrees of heat: when a body, such as ice, appears to be cold, it imparts fewer calorific rays than it receives; and when a substance seems to be warm—for example, a fire—it gives more heat than it takes. ”

“ It has required all the refinements of modern instruments to render the eclipses of these remote moons available to the mariner; now however, that system of bodies invisible to the naked eye, known to man by the aid of science alone, enables him to traverse the ocean, spreading the light of knowledge and the blessings of civilization over the most remote regions, and to return loaded with the productions of another hemisphere. ”

“ Thus the planets, though kindred with the earth in motion and form, are, according to our experience, totally unfit for the habitation of such a being as man, unless indeed their temperature should be modified by circumstances of which we are not aware, and which may increase or diminish the sensible heat so as to render them habitable. In our utter ignorance it may be observed, that the earth, if visible at all from Neptune, can only be a minute telescopic object; that from the nearest fixed star the sun must dwindle to a mere point of light ”

“ She had a buoyant and hopeful spirit, and though her affections were very strong, and she felt keenly, it was ever her nature to turn from the shadows to all that is bright and beautiful in mortal life. ”

“ So numerous are the objects which meet our view in the heavens, that we cannot imagine a point of space where some light would not strike the eye;—innumerable stars, thousands of double and multiple systems, clusters in one blaze with their tens of thousands of stars, and the nebulæ amazing us by the strangeness of their forms and the incomprehensibility of their nature, till at last, from the limit of our senses, even these thin and airy phantoms vanish in the distance. ”

“ Nothing could equal the unwearied kindness of our friends during my illness.
When I was able to travel, we went to Genoa for the winter, and lived on the second floor of a large house on the Acqua Sola, and overlooking the sea. Here first began our friendship with the Marchesa Teresa Doria, whose maiden name was Durazzo; in her youth one of the handsomest women in Genoa, a lady distinguished for her generous character and cultivated mind, and who fearlessly avowed her opinions at a time when it was a kind of disgrace to be called a Liberal. ”

“ Every motion we make, every breath, every word we utter, is a force that produces pulsations which are communicated to continually increasing particles of air, and conveyed through countless channels so as to become indeed imperceptible to our senses, yet they are demonstrated to exist as witnesses of the words we have spoken or the actions we have performed, by analysis, that all-powerful instrument of human reason. ”

“ Our great geologist, Sir Roderick Murchison, with his wife, were among the English residents at Rome. At that time he hardly knew one stone from another. He had been an officer in the Dragoons, an excellent horseman, and a keen fox-hunter. Lady Murchison,—an amiable and accomplished woman, with solid acquirements which few ladies at that time possessed—had taken to the study of geology; and soon after her husband began that career which has rendered him the first geologist of our country. It was then that a friendship began between them and us, which will only end with life. ”

“ I went that summer on a visit to my aunt at Jedburgh, and, for the first time in my life, I met in my uncle, Dr. Somerville, with a friend who approved of my thirst for knowledge. During long walks with him in the early mornings, he was so kind, that I had the courage to tell him that I had been trying to learn Latin, but I feared it was in vain; for my brother and other boys, superior to me in talent, and with every assistance, spent years in learning it. ”

“ There is no doubt, however, that the universal and dead silence generally prevalent at night renders our auditory nerves sensible to impressions which would otherwise escape notice. The analogy between sound and light is perfect in this as in so many other respects. In the general light of day the stars disappear. In the continual hum of voices, which is always going on by day, and which reach us from all quarters, and never leave the ear time to attain complete tranquillity, those feeble sounds which catch our attention at night make no impression. ”

“ We only stayed two days at La Grange, and when we returned to Paris, Somerville went home and my son joined us, when we made a rapid tour in Switzerland, the only remarkable event of which was a singular atmospheric phenomenon we saw on the top of the Grimsel. On the clouds of vapour below us we saw our shadows projected, of giant proportions, and each person saw his own shadow surrounded by a bright circle of prismatic colours. ”

“ Much has been done to ascertain the manner in which heat is distributed over the surface of our planet, and the variations of climate, which, in a general view, mean every change of the atmosphere, such as of temperature, humidity, variations of barometric pressure, purity of air, the serenity of the heavens, the effects of winds, and electric tension. Temperature depends upon the property which all bodies possess, more or less, of perpetually absorbing and emitting or radiating heat. When the interchange is equal, the temperature of a body remains the same ”

“ There was a festa the other night in a church on the water's edge; the shore was illuminated [Pg 258] and hundreds of gondolas were darting along like swallows, the gondoliers rowing as if they had been mad, till the water was as much agitated as if there had been a gale of wind: nothing could be more animated. You will perceive from what I have said that the evening, till a late hour, is the time for amusement, in consequence of which I follow the Italian custom of sleeping after dinner, and am much the better for it. ”

“ In it we perceive the operation of a force which is mixed up with everything that exists in the heavens or on earth; which pervades every atom, rules the motions of animate and inanimate beings, and is as sensible in the descent of a rain-drop as in the falls of Niagara; in the weight of the air, as in the periods of the moon. Gravitation not only binds satellites to their planet, and planets to the sun, but it connects sun with sun throughout the wide extent of creation, and is the cause of the disturbances, as well as of the order of nature ”

“ Every one felt that the greatest and best man of this century has been taken away before he had completely emancipated his country. All the progress is due to him, and to him alone; the revolution has called forth men of much talent, yet the whole are immeasurably his inferior in every respect—even your friend, Ricasoli, who is most able, and the best successor that can be found, is, compared with Cavour, as Tuscany to Europe. ”

“ It is remarkable how little influence the sea has on the variation of the lengths of the arcs of the meridian, or on gravitation; neither does it much affect the lunar inequalities, from its density being only about a fifth of the mean density of the earth. For, if the earth were to become fluid, after being stripped of the ocean, it would assume the form of an ellipsoid of revolution whose compression is 1⁄304·8, which differs very little from that determined by observation, and proves, not only that the density of the ocean is inconsiderable, but that its mean depth is very small. ”

“ When a quantity of common electricity is accumulated, the restoration of equilibrium is attended by an instantaneous violent explosion, accompanied by the development of light, heat, and sound. The concentrated power of the electricity forces its way through every obstacle, disrupting and destroying the cohesion of the particles of the bodies through which it passes, and occasionally increasing its destructive effects by the conversion of fluids into steam from the intensity of the momentary heat, as when trees are torn to pieces by a stroke of lightning. ”

“ Browning, who at that time resided in Florence, except when the delicacy of her health obliged her to go to Rome. I think there is no other instance of husband and wife both poets, and both distinguished in their different lines. I can imagine no happier or more fascinating life than theirs; two kindred spirits united in the highest and noblest aspirations. Unfortunately her life was a short one; in the full bloom of her intellect her frail health gave way, and she died leaving a noble record of genius to future ages, and a sweet memory to those who were her contemporaries. ”