Edmund Airey

“ No one must suspect that we are—bound to one another”—the words were susceptible of a sufficiently liberal interpretation. “The penetration of Edmund Airey will be at fault for the first time, and the others who had so many suspicions at Castle Innisfail, will find themselves completely at fault.” ”

“ He knew the world too well to entertain for a moment the possibility of defeating Lord Fotheringay’s avowed purpose by informing either the girl or her father of the evil reputation of Lord Fotheringay. The evil deeds of a duke have occasionally permitted his wife to obtain a divorce; but they have never prevented him from obtaining another wife.
All this Mr. Edmund Airey knew, having lived in the world and observed the ways of its inhabitants for several years. ”

“ They are, I think, two of the most admirable and delightful persons that the world contains." And again on Dec. 20th, 1835, he wrote to his sister Ann, "My friends—I may almost say my dearest friends —Professor Airy and his family have left Cambridge, he being appointed Astronomer Royal at Greenwich—to me an irreparable loss; but I shall probably go and see how they look in their new abode." Their close intercourse was naturally interrupted by Airy's removal to Greenwich, but their friendly feelings and mutual respect continued without material break till Whewell's death. ”

“ AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR GEORGE BIDDELL AIRY, K.C.B., M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., HONORARY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, ASTRONOMER ROYAL FROM 1836 TO 1881. EDITED BY WILFRID AIRY, B.A., M.Inst.C.E.
1896
PREFACE. The life of Airy was essentially that of a hard-working, business man, and differed from that of other hard-working people only in the quality and variety of his work. It was not an exciting life, but it was full of interest, and his work brought him into close relations with many scientific men, and with many men high in the State. ”

“ Ann Airy, the mother of George Biddell Airy, was a woman of great natural abilities both speculative and practical, kind as a neighbour and as head of a family, and was deeply loved and respected. The family consisted of George Biddell, Elizabeth, William, and Arthur who died young.
William Airy was appointed to Hereford Collection on 22nd October 1802, and removed thither shortly after. He stayed at Hereford till he was appointed to Essex Collection on 28th February 1810, and during this time George Biddell was educated at elementary schools in writing, arithmetic, and a little Latin. ”

“ Airy was noted not less for his ability as an organizer than for his methodical habits. The care with which he preserved every record led Sir William Rowan Hamilton to say that when Airy wiped his pen on a blotter, he fancied him as always taking a press copy of the mark. ”

“ An excellent account of Airy's career has been given by Professor H. H. Turner, in the obituary notice published by the Royal Astronomical Society. To this I am indebted for many of the particulars here to be set down concerning the life of the illustrious Astronomer Royal.
The family from which Airy took his origin came from Kentmere, in Westmoreland. His father, William Airy, belonged to a Lincolnshire branch of the same stock. His mother's maiden name was Ann Biddell, and her family resided at Playford, near Ipswich. ”

“ A branch of this family migrated to Pontefract in Yorkshire, where they seem to have prospered for many years, but they were involved in the consequences of the Civil Wars, and one member of the family retired to Ousefleet in Yorkshire. His grandson removed to Luddington in Lincolnshire, where his descendants for several generations pursued the calling of small farmers. George Biddell Airy's mother, Ann Airy, was the daughter of George Biddell, a well-to-do farmer in Suffolk. ”

“ In the fall of 1848 Lord Rosse invited a number of astronomers to his castle at Parsonstown, Ireland, in order that they might inspect his large reflecting telescope. They were entertained for two weeks, Airy and Hamilton were the principal experts. Airy was able to remove a fault in the mounting of the great mirror, for in practical astronomy he was immensely superior to Hamilton; but as a calculator and scientific genius Hamilton was as much superior. It was on this occasion that Hamilton, influenced by Airy's sarcastic remarks, broke his abstinence resolution. ”

“ In conclusion the Board would express their earnest hope, that in his retirement Sir George Airy may enjoy health and strength and that leisure for which he has often expressed a desire to enable him not only to complete the numerical Lunar Theory on which he has been engaged for some years past, but also to advance Astronomical Science in other directions. ”

“ Of late years his system has been greatly changed, even at Greenwich. It was always questionable whether so rigid a military routine could accomplish the best that was possible in astronomy; and Airy himself, during his later years, modified his plan by trying to secure trained scientific men as his assistants, giving them liberty to combine independent research, on their own account, with the work of the establishment. His successor has gone farther in the same direction, and is now gathering around him a corps of young university men, from whose ability much may be expected. ”

“ He served as lieutenant in the New South Wales Contingent to Egypt in 1885, acting as A.D.C. to General Fremantle in the advance on Tamai. In Burma in 1886-87 he was attached to Sir G. White's staff and was severely wounded while commanding the Gardner Gun Batt. in the attack on Hwai-Hwaing. He gained the D.S.O. in this campaign and was thanked by the Governor-General of India. He also served in South Africa, leading the 1st Regiment Australian Bushmen, and for nine month commanding the B area of Cape Colony. ”

“ Airy seems to have had a strong bent in the direction of astronomy from his youth, and it is curious to note how well furnished he was, by the time that he became Astronomer Royal, both with astronomy in all its branches, and with the kindred sciences so necessary for the practical working and improvement of it. At the time that he went to Cambridge Physical Astronomy was greatly studied there and formed a most important part of the University course. ”

“ And, as in the times of Flamsteed and Halley, the earnest zeal of men of science occasionally led to much controversy and bitterness amongst them. Airy was by no means exempt from such controversies. He was a man of keen sensitiveness, though it was combined with great steadiness of temper, and he never hesitated to attack theories and methods that he considered to be scientifically wrong. This led to differences with Ivory, Challis, South, Cayley, Archibald Smith, and others ”

“ Of private history: up to Jan. 16th Airy was at Playford as usual.—For about a week in April he was in the Isle of Man with his daughter Christabel.—In June there was a short trip to Salisbury, Blandford, and Wimborne.—On August 12th he started with his daughter Annot for a holiday in Cumberland, but on the next day he was recalled by a telegram with the intelligence that a change for the worse had come over his wife's health. Lady Airy died on August 13th, 1875. ”

“ His mode of compensation has been adopted by all the civilized world. Sir William Thomson, one of the latest and perhaps the most successful of modern compass adjusters, when he exhibited his apparatus in 1878 before a distinguished meeting in London, remarked that within the last ten years the application of Sir George Airy's method had become universal, not only in the merchant service, but in the navies of this and other countries, and added—The compass and the binnacles before you are designed to thoroughly carry out in practical navigation the Astronomer Royal's principles. ”

“ We may look back on Airy as the most commanding figure in the astronomy of our time. He owes this position not only to his early works in mathematical astronomy, but also to his ability as an organizer. Before his time the working force of an observatory generally consisted of individual observers, each of whom worked to a greater or less extent in his own way. It is true that organization was not unknown in such institutions. Nominally, at least, the assistants in a national observatory were supposed to follow the instructions of a directing head. This was especially the case at Greenwich. ”

“ Eardley was received in Grosvenor-square on those pleasant terms of equality which were always extended by the host to those whose social manners permitted it, had made May's acquaintance even before she was presented, and had struck up a pleasant friendship with her. Frank Eardley knew too well his own position and the girl's destiny to attempt to convert this friendship into any stronger alliance; and May, who appreciated the state of affairs with equal correctness, made the kindly artist the confidant of many of her hopes and fears. ”

“ He was a very staunch and fearless friend, an able and incisive writer, and remarkably energetic and diligent in astronomical investigations. He, or his sister, Miss Sheepshanks, had a house in London, and Sheepshanks was very much in London, and busied himself extremely with the work of the Royal Observatory, that of the Board of Longitude, and miscellaneous astronomical matters. He was most hospitable to his friends, and while Airy resided at Cambridge his house was always open to receive him on his frequent visits to town. ”

“ The Illustrated Review, a London biographical and literary periodical, to which we are indebted for the preceding statements, remarks that, since the death of Sir John Herschel, on the 11th of May, 1871, Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, is the admitted master of the sublime science. There are other eminent English astronomers—as John Hinde, the discoverer of many asteroids, and John Adams, also a Cambridge Senior Wrangler and the rival of Urban Leverrier, who groped his way by mathematical calculation to the discovery of the position of the hitherto unknown planet Neptune. ”

“ Charles Airy, of Georgia, with his flying-machine, upon the third day of June, 1876.
This young man had communicated with that eminent scientist, Mayor Stokley, about a year previous to the attempt. The Mayor, who delights in encouraging genius of all kinds, promised his countenance to a trial trip of the machine at Philadelphia during the Centennial year.
“I will go with you,” he promised, “I, myself, will ascend with you into the illimitable ether; together will we make the attempt, together will we share the glory.” ”

“ In these emplacements lie some gunners; their heads have been shattered by shells. Under an apple-tree, laden with green fruit, two livid faces turn to the pitiless sky; one man grasps a letter in his hand—it is a woman's writing. ”

“ Did you ever know a man so cold, so callous, so base, so shamelessly devoid of any interest save in his own pleasure or his own gain? Did you ever know one so narrow-hearted, so mean-spirited, of so crafty and cruel a nature?" Her energy quite startled George. ”

“ Probably all of them, at one time or another, had visited Greenwich, and to most of them he was well known. On his retirement from office he received an illuminated Address from his old friend Otto Struve and the staff of the Pulkowa Observatory, an illuminated Address from the Vorstand of the Astronomische Gesellschaft at Berlin signed by Dr Auwers and the Secretaries, a complimentary letter from the Academy of Sciences at Amsterdam, and friendly letters of sympathy from Dr Gould, Prof. Newcombe, Dr Listing, and from many other scientific friends and societies. ”

“ On October 21, 1845, Adams, who had taken his degree (Senior Wrangler) in 1843, communicated to Airy the results of his sixth and final attempt at the solution of the problem, and furnished him with the elements and mass of the perturbing planet, and an indication of its approximate place in the heavens. Airy, whose record in the matter reads very strangely, was little more inclined to give encouragement to Adams than to Hussey. ”

“ Circe.
You never can be a mortal like the barbarians, for you have been a force ruling the sea, and the flowers, and the winds, and twisting the blood of man and woman in your fingers like a living skein of soft red silk. ”

“ Ayre rang the bell, and ordered a new breakfast; as he did so he took up Morewood's letter and put it in his pocket.
Eugene went on talking with gay affectation about his American experiences. Only when he was through his breakfast did he approach home topics.
"Well, how's everybody?"
Ayre waited for a more definite question.
"Seen the Territons lately?"
"Not very. Haven't you?"
"No. They weren't over there, you know. Are they alive?" ”

“ Who is there, that, upon hearing this name, does not instantly recognize everything of genius the most profound, everything of literature the most extensive, everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of observation on human life the most distinguishing and refined? ”

“ The day was bright and cheerful, and a light breeze was stirring the budding branches and lending a sense of exhilaration to the young man who so rarely looked on the fair face of nature, and who had unhappily had all his purer tastes and sympathies so early deadened. ”

“ The road has been broken and battered by the passing of countless military wagons, trodden down by marching feet, it has become a furrow, the plough of war has been over it. On either side gaunt trees lift up gaunt boughs; their branches look like skeleton fingers pointing to the sky, and they look like grim sentinels; the water is half frozen in the dykes. ”

“ Knowledge not the aim, so much As pleasure in the toil that leads to knowledge, We shall build, although the house before our eyes Crumble, and we shall gladden in the toil Although it never leads to habitation— Building our goal, though never a fabric rise. ”