Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary SomervilleSomerville, Mary
History
Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville
Somerville, Mary
Somerville, Mary, 1780-1872; Women scientists -- Great Britain -- Biography
My mother's old age was a thoroughly happy one. She often said
that not even in the joyous spring of life had she been more truly
happy. Serene and cheerful, full of life and activity, as far as her
physical strength permitted, she had none of the infirmities of age,
except difficulty in hearing, which prevented her from joining in
general conversation. She had always been near-sighted, but could
read small print with the greatest ease without glasses, even by
lamp-light. To the last her intellect remained perfectly unclouded;
her affection for those she loved, and her sympathy for all living
beings, as fervent as ever; nor did her ardent desire for and belief
in the ultimate religious and moral improvement of mankind diminish.
She always retained her habit of study, and that pursuit, in which
she had attained such excellence and which was always the most
congenial to her,--Mathematics--delighted and amused her to the end.
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" (with diagrams
exquisitely drawn), and the study of a book on Quaternions. Though
too religious to fear death, she dreaded outliving her intellectual
powers, and it was with intense delight that she pursued her
intricate calculations after her ninetieth and ninety-first years,
and repeatedly told me how she rejoiced to find that she had the
same readiness and facility in comprehending and developing these
extremely difficult formulae which she possessed when young. Often,
also, she said how grateful she was to the Almighty Father who had
allowed her to retain her faculties unimpaired to so great an age.
God was indeed loving and merciful to her; not only did He spare her
this calamity, but also the weary trial of long-continued illness.
In health of body and vigour of mind, having lived far beyond the
usual span of human life, He called her to Himself. For her Death
lost all its terrors. Her pure spirit passed away so gently that
those around her scarcely perceived when she left them. It was the
beautiful and painless close of a noble and a happy life.
My mother died in sleep on the morning of the 29th Nov., 1872. Her
remains rest in the English Campo Santo of Naples.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: "Darwinism in Morals," &c.]
THE END.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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