Famous Men of Science
by Sarah Knowles Bolton · English · Gutenberg #35489 · 632,607 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Famous Men of Science
Author: Sarah Knowles Bolton
Release date: March 6, 2011 [eBook #35489]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35489
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE ***
Produced by Darleen Dove and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
FAMOUS
MEN OF SCIENCE
BY
SARAH K. BOLTON
AUTHOR OF "POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS,"
"FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS," "FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN,"
"SOCIAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND," "STORIES FROM LIFE,"
"FROM HEART AND NATURE," ETC.
_SEVENTH THOUSAND_
"The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night."
LONGFELLOW.
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not
discovered the value of life."--DARWIN.
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
ELECTROTYPED BY
C. J. PETERS AND SON, BOSTON.
PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH, BOSTON, MASS.
TO THOSE
WHO HAVE EXPRESSED PLEASURE IN MY WORK
I dedicate this book.
PREFACE.
Garfield said, "No page of human history is so instructive and
significant as the record of those early influences which develop the
character and direct the lives of eminent men."
These sketches show how young men have overcome difficulties, sometimes
poverty, sometimes illness; how they have made failures before finding
their true vocation. They show the results of energy, perseverance, and
untiring devotion; how a cheerful face and a hopeful spirit like
Agassiz's, or a gentle and kindly nature like Darwin's, can win its way
against opposition.
A sketch of Benjamin Franklin, which otherwise would have a place in
this volume, will be found in "Famous American Statesmen"; also one of
Michael Faraday, in "Poor Boys Who Became Famous."
S. K. B.
CONTENTS.
GALILEO GALILEI 1
SIR ISAAC NEWTON 28
CARL LINNAEUS 49
BARON CUVIER 65
SIR WILLIAM AND CAROLINE HERSCHEL 81
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT 107
SIR HUMPHREY DAVY 139
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 167
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 202
SIR CHARLES LYELL 246
JOSEPH HENRY, LL.D. 275
LOUIS AGASSIZ 302
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 347
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND 396
GALILEO GALILEI.
[Illustration: GALILEO GALILEI.]
"The same memorable day is marked by the setting of one of the most
brilliant stars in the firmament of art and the rising of another in the
sphere of science, which was to enlighten the world with beams of equal
splendor. On the 18th of February, 1564, Michael Angelo Buonarotti
closed his eyes at Rome, and Galileo Galilei first saw the light at
Pisa."
Thus writes young Karl von Gebler, in the best life of Galileo ever
written, his dying contribution to literature. Some other authorities
place Galileo's birth on February 15.
He was the oldest in a family of five children born to Vincenzo Galilei,
a Florentine noble, and Giulia Ammanati, who also belonged to an ancient
family. Vincenzo wrote learnedly about music, and taught his boy to play
on the lute and the organ; but he was poor and life was a struggle.
However beneficial poverty may be in the development of character, most
of us do not crave it for our children, so Vincenzo decided to place his
son where he could earn a comfortable support. Music did not bring
money. Galileo therefore should become a dealer in cloth; a necessity
of life, rather than a luxury.
But the boy soon showed great skill in music, surpassing his father. He
excelled in drawing and color, and could have become a noted artist. He
loved poetry, and had a decided taste for mechanics, making machines of
great ingenuity. It soon became evident that such a lad would not be
satisfied to spend his life trading in wool.
He must be educated, but how? The family had moved from Pisa, where
there were schools of repute, to Florence. An effort had to be made, by
the greatest economy, to prepare Galileo to go back to the Pisan
University. He showed great aptitude for Latin and Greek, and at
seventeen was ready for Pisa.
For what profession should he study? Not what best suited his tastes,
but that in which his father thought he could make money, medicine. Poor
Vincenzo! who can blame him that he hated poverty for his brilliant son?
At college, Galileo became an ardent student of philosophy, and because
he dared to think for himself, and did not always agree with the
teachings of Aristotle, he was called "the wrangler." Until he was
twenty he was scarcely acquainted with the rudiments of mathematics,
because his father thought this study was a waste of time for a man who
was to become a physician. How many parents make the mistake of bending
their children to their own plans, instead of ascertaining what a boy
or girl can do best in the world, and then fitting him or her for it!
While Galileo was studying medicine in Pisa, boarding with a relative,
the court of Tuscany came to the city for a few months. Among the suite
was Ostilio Ricci, a distinguished mathematician, and Governor of the
Pages of the Grand Ducal Court. He was a friend of the Galilei family,
and was pleased to see the bright young son, Galileo. When he taught
Euclid, the medical student would stand shyly at the schoolroom door,
and listen with intense interest. Soon he began to study mathematics
secretly; then begged Ricci to teach him, who gladly consented, till the
father forbade it, seeing that Euclid interfered with medicine.
Meantime, the youth of nineteen, kneeling at prayers in the Pisa
Cathedral, had dreamily watched a bronze lamp swinging from an arch. The
oscillations were at first considerable, but as they grew less and less,
Galileo observed that they were all performed in the same time,
measuring the time by feeling his pulse. The idea occurred to him that
an instrument could be constructed which should mark the rate and
variation of the pulse. He began to experiment, and soon invented the
pulselogia, which the physicians hailed with great delight. The pendulum
was not applied to clocks till a half-century later, but its invention
attracted the attention of all scholars.
After four years' residence at Pisa, Vincenzo Galilei appealed to the
reigning Grand Duke, Ferdinand de Medici, to grant to his son one of the
forty free places founded for poor students, but the request was denied,
and Galileo, unable to pay for his doctor's degree, was obliged to leave
the university without it. Already he had learned bitter lessons of
privation and disappointment, but youth has a brave heart, and looks
ever toward the sunlight.
He went back to his home in Florence to study the works of Archimedes,
whom he called his "master," to write his first essay on his Hydrostatic
Balance, and to earn the reputation of a bold inquirer in geometrical
and mechanical speculations. The father had now given up all hope of a
fortune coming through medicine! Henceforward, the genius which was to
shed lustre on his own name, otherwise buried in obscurity, was to have
its own bent, and work out its own destiny.
If we are in earnest, a door opens sooner or later; but our own hands
usually open it. At twenty-four a door opened to Galileo. Marquis
Guidubaldo, a celebrated mathematician, appreciating what the young
scientist had done, began a correspondence with him, and a valuable
friendship resulted. The marquis asked him to study the position of the
centre of gravity in solid bodies. Galileo applied himself to it, and
wrote a valuable essay, which waited fifty years for publication.
Perhaps no person can be really great who has not learned patience, and
Galileo had many lessons in this virtue before he died.
Through the influence of the marquis, he was brought to the notice of
Ferdinand I., reigning Grand Duke, who appointed him to the mathematical
professorship at Pisa. This was a great honor for a young man of
twenty-six, one who had been too poor to take his degree. The salary was
small, less than a hundred dollars a year; but he earned somewhat by the
practice of medicine, by lectures on Dante and other literary subjects,
and by lessons to private pupils. Of course, he had little or no
leisure; but he thus learned one of the most valuable lessons of
life,--to treasure time as though it were gold. How glad his father and
mother must have been that their wool projects had come to naught!
The professors at Pisa, with a single exception, Jacopo Mazzoni, in the
chair of philosophy, were opposed to the new-comer. They were all
disciples of Aristotle, and had not Galileo, when a boy among them,
dared to oppose the great Grecian? And now, to make matters worse, he
had taken some friends to the top of the Leaning Tower, and had put to
the test the belief of two thousand years,--that the rate at which a
body falls depends upon its weight. When the different weights fell to
the pavement at the foot of the Leaning Tower, at the same time, the
learned were astonished. If Aristotle could be wrong in one thing, he
might in others, and this young man would revolutionize the teaching of
the times!
The feeling became so strong against the investigator that after three
years at Pisa he resigned. When will the world learn toleration for
those whose opinions are different from the popular thought? From
Galileo to Darwin we have persecuted the men and women whose views were
unlike our own in theology, in science, or in social matters.
Through his friend, the Marquis Guidubaldo, the mathematical
professorship at Padua was obtained for Galileo. He was now twenty-nine,
and becoming widely known throughout Italy. His father had just died,
leaving the whole family, a wife and four children, dependent upon him
for support; not a small matter for an ambitious and hard-working
professor.
Padua gave the young man cordial welcome. Vincenzo Pinelli, a learned
nobleman, who possessed eighty thousand volumes, mentioned him to Tycho
Brahe, the great Danish astronomer, as a man whom it would be well to
cultivate; but the Dane was too cautious about his own reputation, and
did not write Galileo till eight years later, and died the following
year.
An associate of Tycho Brahe was wiser than his master, and sent Galileo
his new book, "Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicum." A warm letter
of thanks went back to the immortal John Kepler, saying: "Many years ago
I became a convert to the opinions of Copernicus, and by that theory
have succeeded in fully explaining many phenomena which on the contrary
hypothesis are altogether inexplicable. I have drawn up many arguments
and compilations of the opposite opinions, which, however, I have not
hitherto dared to publish, fearful of meeting the same fate as our
master Copernicus, who, although he has earned for himself immortal fame
amongst the few, yet amongst the greater number appears as only worthy
of hooting and derision; so great is the number of fools."
John Kepler, like Galileo, lived a pathetic life. His childhood was
spent in the little beer-shop of his wretchedly poor father. At six he
had a severe attack of small-pox, and his eyes were permanently
weakened. He was put to the plough, but his delicate body could not bear
the work. At last, through charity, he became a theological student at
Tuebingen. But here he began to think for himself, and, probably, would
have been obliged to leave the university.
Fortunately for science, he heard some lectures given by Michael
Moestlen, famous in mathematics and astronomy. A new world opened to
Kepler. He applied himself with all the ardor of youth, and at
twenty-two became professor of mathematics at Graetz, in Styria. He was
soon driven away from this Catholic stronghold, on account of his
Protestant faith. Tycho Brahe heard of his needs, and made him his
assistant at Prague, with a salary of seven hundred and fifty dollars a
year. This seemed regal splendor to the poor astronomer. Now he studied
the heavens with hope and delight.
But sorrows soon came. His children died, his wife became insane, and
died also. The salary could not be paid, on account of the religious
wars which convulsed Germany. He wrote almanacs, took private pupils,
and in all ways tried to support his second wife and children, while he
studied the heavens year by year, discovering his three great laws. The
mathematical calculations for the first law, that the planets move in
elliptical orbits round the sun, which is placed at one of the foci,
filled seven hundred pages. His "Harmonies of the World" contained his
third great law: "The squares of the periodic times of the planets are
proportioned to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun."
Such was his joy when he discovered this law, after seventeen years of
labor, that he said, "I have written my book. It will be read; whether
in the present age or by posterity matters little. It can wait for its
readers. Has not God waited six thousand years for one to contemplate
his works?" In a last fruitless attempt to recover twenty-nine thousand
florins, owed him by the government, worn out with want and
disappointment, he fell ill and died at Ratisbon, leaving thirty-three
works, twenty-two volumes in manuscript, and his family in the direst
poverty. Such was the man who admired Galileo in his youth, and who
stands with him in the admiration of the generations that have come and
gone since these two men lived and wrote and suffered.
At Padua, Galileo soon attracted great numbers to his class-room. Often
a thousand gathered to hear his lectures, and when the hall was too
cramped, he spoke to the people in the open air. He was above the middle
height, well proportioned, with cheerful countenance, witty in
conversation, and enthusiastic in his manner. So learned that he could
repeat by heart much of the works of Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and Seneca;
he was yet modest and unassuming, saying that he never met a man so
ignorant but that something might be learned from him.
He labored incessantly. He wrote treatises on Fortifications, on
Mechanics, on Gnomonics, on the laws of motion, on the celestial globe,
which were copied by his pupils, and sent by them far and wide over
Europe. He took a workman into his family, and began to superintend the
making of the compass which he had invented, and the thermoscope, or
heat indicator, which led in later years to the thermometer. His
experiment was made by a "glass bottle about the size of a hen's egg,
the neck of which was two palms long, and as narrow as a straw. Having
well heated the bulb in his hands, he placed its mouth in a vessel
containing a little water, and withdrawing the heat of his hand from the
bulb, instantly the water rose in the neck, more than a palm above the
level of the water in the vessel."
During the first six years at Padua, his salary rose from about one
hundred dollars to five hundred dollars, yearly. All this time, when his
mind should have been free from care for his great work, he was beset
with difficulties. His sister, Virginia, had married before his father's
death, but a promised dowry had never been paid, and now the
brother-in-law demanded the payment. The mother, worried over the
prospect, wrote to her son, Galileo, "If you carry into effect your
intention of coming here next month, I shall be rejoiced, only you must
not come unprovided with funds, for I see that Benedetto is determined
to have his own, that is to say, what you promised him; and he threatens
loudly that he will have you arrested the instant you arrive here. And
as I hear you bound yourself to pay, he would have the power to arrest
you, and he is just the man to do it. So I warn you, for it would grieve
me much if anything of the kind were to happen."
Livia, another sister, had become engaged to a Pisan gentleman, with the
promise of a dowry of eighteen hundred ducats, eight hundred of which
must be paid down. The "Pisan gentleman" could not burden himself with a
wife, without funds to help support her and himself. So Galileo
generously, if not wisely, borrowed six hundred ducats, and paid the
necessary eight hundred, giving his sister beautiful clothes and house
furnishings.
Besides these sisters, Galileo had a lazy brother to provide for,
Michelangelo, a young man of some musical talent and elegant manners,
with the not unusual gift of being able to spend much and earn little.
Galileo obtained a situation for him with a Polish prince, and spent two
hundred crowns in getting him ready for the new position. He went
thither, but soon returned, and another place had to be procured for
him, at the court of the Duke of Bavaria.
While there, instead of helping to pay his sister's dowry, as he had
promised, he married; had an extravagant wedding feast, and then wrote
his hard-working brother: "I know that you will say that I should have
waited, and thought of our sisters before taking a wife. But, good
heavens! the idea of toiling all one's life just to put by a few
farthings to give one's sisters! This yoke would be indeed too heavy and
bitter; for I am more than certain that in thirty years I should not
have saved enough to cover this debt."
With all the pressure upon him for money, Galileo kept steadily on in
his absorbing studies. In the year 1609, he constructed a telescope. It
is true that Hans Lipperhey, of Germany, had invented a spy-glass, and
presented it to Prince Maurice, so that the principle was understood;
but nobody gave it practical illustration till Galileo, having heard of
the glass, began to reflect how an instrument could be made to bring
distant objects near. In a leaden tube, he fixed two glasses, both
having one side flat, and the other side of the one concave, and the
other convex. By this, objects appeared three times nearer and nine
times larger. A few days later, he hastened with his leaden tube to
Venice, to exhibit it to the Doge and the Senate. He wrote to a
friend:--
"Many gentlemen and senators, even the oldest, have ascended at various
times the highest bell-towers in Venice, to spy out ships at sea, making
sail for the mouth of the harbor, and have seen them clearly, though
without my telescope they would have been invisible for more than two
hours. The effect of this instrument is to show an object at a distance
of, say, fifty miles, as if it were but five miles off.
"Perceiving of what great utility such an instrument would prove in
naval and military operations, and seeing that His Serenity greatly
desired to possess it, I resolved four days ago to go to the palace and
present it to the Doge as a free gift. And on quitting the
presence-chamber, I was commanded to bide awhile in the hall of the
senate, whereunto, after a little, the Illustrissimo Prioli, who is
Procurator and one of the Riformatori of the University, came forth to
me from the presence-chamber, and, taking me by the hand, said, 'that
the senate, knowing the manner in which I had served it for seventeen
years at Padua, and being sensible of my courtesy in making it a present
of my telescope, had immediately ordered the Illustrious Riformatori to
elect me (with my good-will) to the professorship for life, with a
stipend of one thousand florins yearly.'"
This must have been a comfort to the now famous Galileo, as it was,
doubtless, to the useless Michelangelo, and the two brothers-in-law! He
could now live in comparative peace and rest.
On his return to Padua, he began eagerly to study the heavens. He found
that the surface of the moon was mountainous; that the Milky Way was
composed of an immense number of small stars and nebulous matter; that
Orion, instead of being made up of seven heavenly bodies, had over five
hundred stars; and that the Pleiades were not seven, but thirty-six. In
January, 1610, he discovered the four moons of Jupiter, and that they
revolved around him. July 25 of the same year, he discovered the ring of
Saturn; in October, the phases of Venus, and later, the solar spots.
Florence and Padua were in a blaze of excitement. These new discoveries
seemed to prove that the earth was not the centre of the universe, but
that Copernicus was right when he declared the sun to be the centre.
Great opposition began to develop itself. Some of the Aristotelians
declared that the telescope of Galileo showed things which do not exist.
"It was ridiculous," they said, "that four planets (Jupiter's moons)
were chasing each other around a large planet.
"It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the sun, etc., turn round. If
the earth revolves, it must also have an angel in the centre to set it
in motion; but if only devils live there, it would, therefore, be a
devil who would impart motion to the earth.
"The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one species;
namely, that of stars--they, therefore, all move, or all stand still.
"It seems, therefore, to be a grievous wrong to place the earth, which
is a sink of impurity, among the heavenly bodies, which are pure and
divine things."
Libri, one of the Pisan professors, spoke of the new discoveries as
"celestial trifles." When he died, Galileo naively remarked, "Libri did
not choose to see my celestial trifles while he was on earth; perhaps he
will, now he is gone to heaven."
Galileo now longed for freedom from teaching, that he might have his
time for study and writing. He had planned, he said, "two books on the
system of the universe; an immense work (idea, _concetto_), full of
philosophy, astronomy, and geometry: three books on local motion, a
science entirely new; no one, either ancient or modern, having
discovered any of the marvellous accidents which I demonstrate in
natural and violent motions; so that I may, with very great reason, call
it a new science, discovered by me from its very first principles: three
books on mechanics, two on the demonstration of its first principles,
and one of problems; and though this is a subject which has already been
treated by various writers, yet all which has been written hitherto
neither in quantity nor otherwise is the quarter of what I am writing
on it. I have also various treatises on natural subjects, on sound and
speech, on sight and colors, on the tide, on the composition of
continuous quantity, on the motion of animals, and others; besides, I
have also an idea of writing some books on the military art, giving not
only a model of a soldier, but teaching, with very exact rules, all
which it is his duty to know that depends on mathematics; as, for
instance, the knowledge of encampment, drawing up battalions,
fortifications, assaults, planning, surveying, the knowledge of
artillery, the use of various instruments, etc."
With all this work in mind, he resigned the professorship at Padua, and
removed to Florence, the Grand Duke Cosmo II. giving him a yearly salary
of about one thousand dollars, and the title of Philosopher to His
Highness.
His first thought, as ever, was for his family. He asked an advance of
two years' salary, and paid the dowry debts of his sisters' grasping
husbands.
In 1611, his expenses paid by the Grand Duke, he went to Rome to show
his "celestial novelties," as they were called, to the pope and the
cardinals. He was received with great attention, and all seemed
delighted to look upon the wonders of the heavens, provided always that
nothing could be proved against the supposed assertion of the Bible that
the earth did not move!
Galileo soon published his "Discourse on Floating Bodies," which
aroused violent opposition; "Spots observed on the Body of the Sun," and
the "Discourse on the Tides."
Four years later, he was again in Rome to plead for the Copernican
system, and to defend his own conduct in advocating a thing in
opposition to the Catholic church. He said: "I am inclined to think that
the authority of Holy Scripture is intended to convince men of those
truths which are necessary for their salvation, and which, being far
above man's understanding, cannot be made credible by any learning, or
any other means than revelation by the Holy Spirit. But that the same
God, who has endowed us with senses, reason, and understanding, does not
permit us to use them, and desires to acquaint us in any other way with
such knowledge as we are in a position to acquire for ourselves by means
of those faculties, _that_, it seems to me, I am not bound to believe,
especially concerning those sciences about which the Holy Scriptures
contain only small fragments and varying conclusions; and this is
precisely the case with astronomy, of which there is so little that the
planets are not even all enumerated."
However, in spite of Galileo's logic, the church decreed that all books
which stated the Copernican system as true should be prohibited; as a
mathematical hypothesis, it might be speculated upon. This was a great
disappointment to Galileo, who loved and revered the Roman Catholic
faith. He went home to the Villa Segni, at Bellosguardo, near Florence,
and for seven years led a studious and secluded life.
His greatest comfort, during these quiet years, was the devotion of his
daughter, Polissena, who had entered a convent as Sister Maria Celeste.
While in Padua, Galileo had three children by Marina Gamba, a Venetian
woman of inferior station. She afterwards married a man of her own
class, and Galileo took his children to his own home; a condition of
things possible with the low moral standard of the time. The two
daughters were placed in a convent, while the son, Vincenzo, was
educated for the profession of medicine, but he seems to have been a
disappointment and a source of discomfort.
Maria Celeste, in the convent of St. Matthew, loving and tender, and
helpful to all around her, wrote constantly to the man whom she
idolized. "I put by carefully," she says, "the letters you write me
daily, and when not engaged with my duties, I read them over and over
again. This is the greatest pleasure I have, and you may think how glad
I am to read the letters you receive from persons who, besides being
excellent in themselves, have you in esteem."
Again she writes, "I leave you to imagine how pleased I am to read the
letters you constantly send me. Only to see how your love for me prompts
you to let me know fully what favors you receive from these gentlemen is
enough to fill me with joy. Nevertheless I feel it a little hard to hear
that you intend leaving home so soon, because I shall have to do
without you, and for a long time too, if I am not mistaken. And your
lordship may believe that I am speaking the truth when I say that except
you there is not a creature who gives me any comfort. But I will not
grieve at your departure because of this, for that would be to complain
when you had cause for rejoicing. Therefore I too will rejoice, and
continue to pray God to give you grace and health to make a prosperous
journey, so that you may return satisfied, and live long and happily,
all which, I trust, will come to pass by God's help.
"I send two baked pears for these days of vigil. But as the greatest
treat of all, I send you a rose, which ought to please you extremely,
seeing what a rarity it is at this season. And with the rose, you must
accept its thorns, which represent the bitter passion of our Lord, while
the green leaves represent the hope we may entertain that through the
same Sacred Passion we, having passed through the darkness of this short
winter of our mortal life, may attain to the brightness and felicity of
an eternal spring in heaven."
"Only in one respect does cloister life weigh heavily on me; that is,
that it prevents my attending on you personally, which would be my
desire, were it permitted. My thoughts are always with you."
And so the seven years of study went by, with the sweet love of Maria
Celeste to brighten them. There are none so great that they can live
without affection.
At the end of the seven years, Urban VIII. came to the pontifical
throne, and Galileo and other scientists rejoiced, for he had seemed
liberal in thought and generous in heart. When he was cardinal, he had
sent a letter to Galileo, saying, "The esteem which I always entertain
for yourself and your great merits has given occasion to the enclosed
verses. If not worthy of you, they will serve at any rate as a proof of
my affection, while I purpose to add lustre to my poetry by your
renowned name. Without wasting words, then, in further apologies, which
I leave to the confidence which I place in you, I beg you to receive
with favor this insignificant proof of my great affection."
At Easter, 1624, Galileo, now sixty years old, resolved to proceed to
Rome, to welcome the new pope, and urge his approval of the Copernican
theory. Frail in health, he was carried most of the way in a litter.
During a visit of six weeks, he had six long audiences with Urban VIII.;
but, though he was affably received, the pope was in no wise convinced,
but rather tried to convince Galileo that he was in error.
Yet so kind was he that Galileo went back to Florence with the hope and
belief that he could bring out his great work, "Dialogues on the Two
Principal Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and Copernican," without
opposition from the church. In this book, Galileo gave the results of
scientific research and discovery in the half century preceding, using
such clear yet brilliant style in writing as to make the work attractive
even to the unlearned.
It was ready for publication in March, 1630, but to be sure that the
pope did not object, Galileo was urged to go in person to Rome. He went
and presented the matter to Urban, who gave his consent provided that
the title should show that the Copernican system was treated as a
hypothesis merely, and that he, the pope, should write the closing
argument.
Rather than forego the publication of that upon which he had worked for
years, Galileo consented, and returned to Florence. A license to publish
was then obtained from the Inquisitor-General, and the Vicar-General of
Florence, after great delay. A second and a third time the papal
authorities wished to look over the manuscript. Two years went slowly
by.
Other anxieties came to the man of sixty-eight, besides the long delay.
The impecunious Michelangelo sent his wife, seven children, and a German
nurse, to the home of Galileo, to be taken care of. The eldest nephew
was sent to Rome to study music. He was found to be obstinate, impudent,
and dissolute, "wicked ways" which his weak and indulgent father said
"he did not learn from me, or any one else belonging to him. It must
have been the fault of his wet nurse!"
Galileo's son Vincenzo had married and brought his wife home to live.
Strange fortune for this man of genius! Strange that he must have
helpless relatives, and constant pecuniary troubles. Most great lives
are as pathetic as they are great.
As ever, the one gleam of light was the daily letter from Maria Celeste,
in which she expressed a tenderness beyond what any daughter ever had
for a father. "But I do not know how to express myself, except by saying
that I love you better than myself. For, after God, I belong to you; and
your kindnesses are so numberless that I feel I could put my life in
peril, were it to save you from any trouble, excepting only that I would
not offend His Divine Majesty."
Finally Galileo moved to Arcetri, over against the convent, to be near
the one who alone satisfied his heart.
In January, 1632, the "Dialogues" appeared. Copies were sent to his
friends and disciples throughout Italy. The whole country applauded, and
at last Galileo seemed to have won the homage he had so long deserved.
But a storm was gathering. Enemies were at work prejudicing the mind of
Urban VIII., making him feel that Galileo had wrought evil to the
church. At once an order came from the Inquisition to secure every copy
in the booksellers' shops throughout Italy, and to forward all copies to
Rome.
In October of the same year of publication, Galileo was summoned to
appear at Rome, to answer to that terror of past centuries, the charge
of heresy. His friends urged that he was old and feeble, and that he
would die on the journey, but Urban's commands were peremptory.
Galileo was deeply depressed by the summons, and wrote a friend: "This
vexes me so much that it makes me curse the time devoted to these
studies, in which I strove and hoped to deviate somewhat from the beaten
track generally pursued by learned men. I not only repent having given
the world a portion of my writings, but feel inclined to suppress those
still in hand, and to give them to the flames, and thus satisfy the
longing desire of my enemies, to whom my ideas are so inconvenient."
On January 20, 1633, the decrepit old man set out in a litter for Rome,
arriving on February 13. On April 12, he was brought before the
Inquisition, and briefly examined and then remanded to prison, though
treated with great leniency. The anxiety and deprivation from outdoor
exercise brought on illness, and he was confined to his bed till led a
second time before the Inquisition, April 30.
Weak, aged, in fear of torture, he made the melancholy confession that
his "error had been one of vainglorious ambition, and pure ignorance and
inadvertence." Pure ignorance! from the man who had studied for fifty
years all that the world knew of science! But he recalled how men had
died at the stake for offending the church. The world is not full of
men and women who can suffer death for their convictions, however much
we may admire such courage. On May 10, he was summoned a third time
before the Inquisition, and told that he had eight days in which to
write his defence. In touching language he stated how the book had been
examined and re examined by the authorities, so that there might be
nothing heterodox in it; and then he urged them to consider his age and
feeble health.
A fourth time he came before the Holy Congregation, June 21, and was
asked whether he held that the sun is the centre of the solar system,
and that the earth is not the centre, and that it moves. He replied, "I
do not hold, and have not held this opinion of Copernicus since the
command was intimated to me that I must abandon it; for the rest, I am
here in your hands,--do with me what you please."
And then June 22, in the forenoon, in the large hall of the Dominican
Convent of St. Maria sopra la Minerva, in the presence of cardinals and
prelates, he heard his sentence.
"The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and does not
move from its place is absurd, and false philosophically, and formally
heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture.
"The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world and
immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally
absurd and false philosophically; and theologically considered, at
least, erroneous in faith.... Invoking, therefore, the most holy name of
our Lord Jesus Christ and of His most glorious mother and ever Virgin
Mary ... we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, that you, the said
Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in process, and by you
confessed as above, have rendered yourself, in the judgment of this Holy
Office, vehemently suspected of heresy,--namely, of having believed and
held the doctrine, which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine
Scriptures,--that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move
from east to west, and that the earth moves and is not the centre of the
world.... We condemn you to the formal prison of this Holy Office during
our pleasure, and, by way of salutary penance, we enjoin that for three
years to come you repeat once a week the seven Penitential Psalms."
Galileo was also required to "abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid
errors and heresies." And then the white-haired man of seventy, humbly
kneeling before the whole assembly, made the pitiful abjuration of his
belief. "I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and
detest the said errors and heresies, and, generally, all and every error
and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church."
Pitiful spectacle of intolerance! If we of this nineteenth century have
learned to tolerate and treat with respect the beliefs of others though
widely divergent from our own, perhaps this wretched drama was not acted
in vain.
It has been said that Galileo exclaimed as he rose from his feet, "_E
pur si muove_," "It moves, for all that," but this would have been well
nigh an impossibility, in the midst of men who would instantly have
taken him to a dungeon, and the story is no longer believed.
On July 9, poor Galileo was allowed to leave Rome for Siena, where he
stayed five months in the house of the archbishop, and then became a
prisoner in his own house at Arcetri, with strict injunctions that he
was "not to entertain friends, nor to allow the assemblage of many at a
time."
He wrote sadly to Maria Celeste, "My name is erased from the book of the
living." Tender words came back, saying that it seemed "a thousand
years" since she had seen him, and that she would recite the seven
penitential psalms for him, "to save you the trouble of remembering it."
In less than a year, sweet Maria Celeste had said the last psalms for
him. She died April 1, 1634, at thirty-three years of age, leaving
Galileo heart-broken; "a woman," he said, "of exquisite mind, singular
goodness, and most tenderly attached to me."
He went to work on another book, but he said, pathetically, "I hear her
constantly calling me!" Beautiful spirit, that will forever shed a halo
around the name of Galileo Galilei!
In the summer of 1636, he completed his "Dialogues on Motion," and sent
it to Leyden for publication. The next year he made his last discovery,
known as the moon's librations.
The house at Arcetri had become dark and lonely. The wife of
Michelangelo, her three daughters and a son, had all died of the plague.
It was doubly dark, for Galileo had become hopelessly blind, "so that
this heaven, this earth, this universe, which I by my marvellous
discoveries and clear demonstrations had enlarged a hundred thousand
times beyond the belief of the wise men of bygone ages, henceforward for
me is shrunk into such a small space as is filled by my own bodily
sensations."
His last work was a short treatise on the secondary light of the moon.
"I am obliged now," he said, sadly, "to have recourse to other hands and
other pens than mine since my sad loss of sight. This, of course,
occasions great loss of time, particularly now that my memory is
impaired by advanced age; so that in placing my thoughts on paper, many
and many a time I am forced to have the foregoing sentences read to me
before I can tell what ought to follow; else I should repeat the same
thing over and over."
He had planned other work, but death came on the evening of January 8,
1642, eight years after Celeste left him. His beloved pupils, Torricelli
and Viviani, and his son Vincenzo, stood by his bedside.
He desired to be buried in the family vault of the Galilei in Santa
Croce, at Florence, and the city at once voted a public funeral and
three thousand crowns for a marble mausoleum. But the church at Rome
prevented, lest the pernicious doctrine that the earth moves, should
thereby have confirmation. He was therefore buried in an obscure corner
of Del Noviziato, a side chapel of Santa Croce.
A century later, March 12, 1737, in the presence of the learned men of
Italy, with great ceremony, the bones of Galileo were removed to a new
resting-place in Santa Croce, and buried with his beloved friend,
Viviani. An imposing monument was erected over him. The truth finally
triumphed, as it always does. The works of Galileo, in sixteen volumes,
are no longer prohibited, as they were in his lifetime.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
[Illustration: SIR ISAAC NEWTON.]
In the same year, 1642, in which Galileo, sad and blind, went away from
the earth, Sir Isaac Newton came to make his home upon it.
He was born December 25, the only child of Isaac Newton and Hannah
Ayscough. The father died at thirty-seven, a few months after his
marriage, and the young wife, after the birth of her child, was both
father and mother to the helpless infant. He was so frail that there
seemed little probability that he could live to manhood, or even
boyhood. Naturally, between mother and son there grew a most ardent
affection, which neither time nor death could change.
The manor-house of Woolsthorpe in Colsterworth, Lincoln county, was a
two-story stone building, owned for a century by the Newton family, and
bringing a limited income from the little farm in connection with it.
Here Isaac passed his childhood, going to the schools near by, and
learning to read, write, and cipher.
At twelve, he was sent to the public school at Grantham, where he showed
little taste for study, and managed easily to stand at the foot of his
class. When he was the last in the lowermost form but one, the boy next
above him, as they were going to school, gave Isaac a kick, which
occasioned severe pain. Stirred with wrath, Isaac challenged the other
boy to a fight. For this purpose, they repaired to a neighboring
churchyard, where young Newton, though much the smaller and weaker of
the two, pounded his antagonist till he was glad to come to any terms of
submission.
He resolved now that this boy should no longer stand above him in
scholarship, and with a new ambition and energy born of his insult, he
soon rose to the highest place in the school. It was not idleness,
probably, that made Newton a poor scholar, but his mind was absorbed
with making saws, hammers, hatchets, and other tools.
He made a windmill and placed it on the top of his home, the wind
putting it in motion. When there was no wind, a novel expedient was
resorted to. A mouse, which was called "the miller," was trained to turn
the windmill by walking on a tread wheel, with some corn just beyond his
reach! All through life, he was exceedingly kind to animals, and could
never tolerate shooting or hunting for sport. He objected to one of his
nephews, when praised in his presence, "that he loved killing of birds,"
and this was sufficient to win his disesteem. It is probable, therefore,
that the little mouse was kindly cared for by the young experimenter.
He also made a water clock, about four feet high, with a dial-plate at
the top, with figures of the hours. The index was turned by a piece of
wood, which either fell or rose by water dropping. Every morning the lad
supplied his clock with the proper amount of water.
Besides these, he invented a four-wheeled carriage, which was moved with
a handle by the person who sat in it. For his boy friends, he made
lanterns of "crimpled paper" with a candle inside, to light them to
school in the dark winter mornings, and paper kites of the best form and
proportion. In dark nights he tied the lanterns to the tails of his
kites, and ignorant people sometimes mistook them for comets!
On the manor-house at Woolsthorpe he carved sun-dials, which were
visible a century later. He was a "sober, silent, and thinking lad," who
was always hammering in his room, or making drawings with his pen and
pencil, designing with charcoal on his walls, birds, animals, ships, and
mathematical diagrams.
Mrs. Newton, the mother, had married again, after a singular courtship.
"Mr. Smith, a neighboring clergyman, who had a very good estate, had
lived a bachelor till he was pretty old, and, one of his parishioners
advising him to marry, he said he did not know where to meet with a good
wife. The man answered, 'The widow Newton is an extraordinary good
woman.' 'But,' said Mr. Smith, 'how do I know she will have me, and I
don't care to ask and be denied; but if you will go and ask her, I will
pay you for your day's work.'
"He went accordingly. Her answer was, she would be advised by her
brother Ayscough, upon which Mr. Smith sent the same person to Mr.
Ayscough on the same errand, who, upon consulting with his sister,
treated with Mr. Smith, who gave her son Isaac a parcel of land, one of
the terms insisted upon by the widow if she married him."
Though for a time she was thus removed from Isaac, leaving him with his
grandmother, on the death of Rev. Mr. Smith, she returned to the
manor-house.
When Isaac had reached his fifteenth year, his mother, not seeming to
think of any profession for her mechanical son, decided to make of him a
farmer and grazier. On Saturdays, the market day at Grantham, she would
send him with grain and other agricultural produce, in the care of an
old and trusty servant. The boy had no taste for selling produce, and
would hasten to the attic in the house of Mr. Clark, an apothecary, with
whom he had boarded while at school, and there spend his hours in
reading old books, till the time came for him to go home, the servant
meantime having sold the vegetables.
Sometimes, however, the lad would not go as far as Grantham, but,
seating himself beside a hedge along the road, would read some favorite
author till the servant returned. When his mother sent him to watch the
cattle, they enjoyed a neighbor's corn-field, while he enjoyed a book or
whittled out water-wheels. It did not seem intentional disobedience
toward a mother of whom he was very fond, but complete absorption in
some other pursuit.
When he was sixteen he was greatly interested in finding the proper form
of a body which would offer the least resistance when moving in a fluid.
In a severe storm, to test the force of the gale, he jumped first in the
direction in which the wind blew, and then in opposition to the wind,
and after measuring the length of the leap in both directions, and
comparing it with the length to which he could jump in a perfectly calm
day, he was enabled to compute the force of the storm.
His mother soon found that her boy would not make a successful farmer,
and sent him back to school at Grantham, to prepare for Trinity College,
Cambridge, which he entered when he was nineteen.
It is probable that the time spent at Grantham was a happy time; for
young Newton there met and, it is said, loved Miss Storey, sister of Dr.
Storey, a physician near Colsterworth, and daughter of the apothecary's
second wife. She was two or three years younger than Newton, a girl of
attractive face and unusual talents. As his income as a Fellow was
small, after leaving college, they did not marry, though his interest in
her continued unabated through life. Though she was twice married, he
never paid a visit to Woolsthorpe without going to see her, and
liberally relieved her from little pecuniary embarrassments, when his
own circumstances had become easy. How the world loves constancy; an
affection which knows no change! That he would have been happier in
those quiet years of study, even in his poverty, had he married, is
probable; but that the world gained by his undivided devotion to
science, is equally probable.
On July 8, 1661, Newton entered college, and soon, through the study of
Descartes' Geometry, showed his skill in higher mathematics. And now
began an almost unexampled development of mind.
At twenty-two, he was studying a comet so closely, and the circles and
halo round the moon, that he impaired his health by sitting up late at
night. In 1665, May 20, when he was twenty-three, he committed to
writing his first discovery of fluxions--"the infinitely small increase
or decrease of a variable or flowing quantity in a certain infinitely
small and constant period of time."
The same year, when the college had been dismissed on account of the
plague in Cambridge, Newton made his immortal discovery of the
Attraction of Gravitation. While sitting alone in his garden at
Woolsthorpe, and observing an apple fall to the ground, it occurred to
him that as the same power by which the apple fell was not sensibly
diminished at the summits of the loftiest spires, nor on the tops of
the highest mountains, it might extend to the moon, about which he had
been studying, and retain her in her orbit. If to the moon, why not to
the planets?
The tree from which the apple fell was so much decayed in 1820, that it
was cut down, but the wood was carefully preserved by Mr. Turnor of
Stoke Rocheford.
In the beginning of the following year, 1666, when Newton was
twenty-four, he purchased a prism, in order to make some experiments on
Descartes' theory of colors. He made a hole in his window shutter,
darkened the room, and admitted a ray of the sunlight. On the opposite
wall he saw the solar or prismatic spectrum, an elongated image of the
sun, about five times as long as it was broad, and consisting of _seven_
different colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
White light was thus discovered to be of a compound nature; a mixture of
all the colors. He said, "Whiteness is the usual color of light; for
light is a confused aggregate of rays endued with all sorts of colors,
as they are promiscuously darted from the various parts of luminous
bodies." If any one color predominates, the light will incline to that
color, as the yellow flame of a candle. Heretofore, there had been all
sorts of conjectures about the nature and origin of colors. Descartes
believed them to be a modification of light, depending on the direct or
rotary motion of its particles. But Newton showed by many experiments
that color is a property of light, or innate in light itself. We speak
of a thing as red because it reflects red, and absorbs all the other
colors. The green leaf stops or absorbs the red, blue, and violet rays
of the white light, and reflects and transmits only those which compose
its green.
He also found that the red rays are refracted or turned out of their
course least of all the colors, and violet most, thereby discovering the
different refrangibility of the rays of light; "a discovery which has
had the most extensive applications to every branch of science, and,
what is very rare in the history of inventions, one to which no other
person has made the slightest claim."
His beautiful experiments with rings resulted in his Scale of Colors, of
great value in optical research.
In 1668, when Newton was twenty-six, he constructed a small reflecting
telescope, and soon a larger one, which he sent to the Royal Society;
and was made a member of that body, in 1671. Two years previously he had
been appointed to the Lucasian professorship of mathematics at
Cambridge.
He was now, at twenty-seven, spoken of as a man of "unparalleled
genius." He had discovered the compound nature of white light, the
attraction of gravity, fluxions, and made the first reflecting telescope
ever directed toward the heavens, though one had been invented
previously, by James Gregory, of Aberdeen. The boy who had thought of a
mouse to turn his windmill had thought out some of the sublimest things
in nature, and was henceforward to rank as one of the few masterminds of
science. Newton's doctrine of colors met with the most bitter
opposition. At last, he became so tired of the controversy, that he
wrote Leibnitz, "I was so persecuted with discussions arising out of my
theory of light, that I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so
substantial a blessing as my quiet to run after a shadow." To another he
wrote, "I see I have made myself a slave to philosophy; but if I get
free of Mr. Linus's business, I will resolutely bid adieu to it
eternally, excepting what I do for my private satisfaction, or leave to
come out after me; for I see a man must either resolve to put out
nothing new, or to become a slave to defend it."
Newton was also troubled pecuniarily at this time, and asked to be
excused from the weekly payments to the Royal Society, thereby resigning
his membership. He even meditated the study of law, as his income was so
limited. Strange that so many of the great things of this life are
wrought out by those who are in sorrow or privation.
But amid all the opposition to his discoveries and his poverty, the
unparalleled devotion to study was continued. When he was weary of other
branches, he said "he refreshed himself with history and chronology."
Years afterward he published the "Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
amended, to which is prefixed a short chronicle, from the first memory
of things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia, by Alexander the
Great." Says a gentleman who was with him for years, "I never knew him
to take any recreation or pastime, either in riding out to take the air,
walking, boating, or any other exercise whatever, thinking all hours
lost that were not spent in his studies, to which he kept so close that
he seldom left his chamber except at term time, when he read in the
schools, as being Lucasianus Professor, where so few went to hear him,
and fewer that understood him, that oftentimes he did in a manner, for
want of hearers, read to the walls....
"So intent, so serious upon his studies that he ate very sparingly, nay,
ofttimes he has forgot to eat at all, so that, going into his chamber, I
have found his mess untouched, of which when I have reminded him he
would reply, 'Have I?' and then making to the table, would eat a bit or
two standing, for I cannot say I ever saw him sit at table by himself.
At some seldom entertainments the masters of colleges were chiefly his
guests.
"He very rarely went to bed till two or three of the clock, sometimes
not till five or six, lying about four or five hours, especially at
spring and fall of the leaf, at which times he used to employ about six
weeks in his elaboratory, the fire scarcely going out either night or
day, he sitting up one night, and I another, till he had finished his
chemical experiments, in the performances of which he was the most
accurate, strict, exact...."
When his most intense studies were carried on, "he learned to go to bed
at twelve, finding by experience that if he exceeded that hour but a
little, it did him more harm in his health than a whole day's study."
"He very rarely went to dine in the hall, except on some public days,
and then if he has not been minded, would go very carelessly, with shoes
down at heels, stockings untied, surplice on, and his head scarcely
combed.... At some seldom times when he designed to dine in the hall, he
would turn to the left hand and go out into the street, when making a
stop when he found his mistake, would hastily turn back, and then
sometimes, instead of going into the hall, would return to his chamber
again.... In his chamber he walked so very much that you might have
thought him to be educated at Athens, among the Aristotelian sect."
So absent-minded was he, the story is told of him, that going home to
Colsterworth, he led his horse up a hill. When he designed to remount,
the animal had slipped the bridle and gone away unperceived, though
Newton held the bridle in his hand all the time. He would often sit down
on his bedside after he rose, and remain there for hours without
dressing, so completely absorbed was he in his thought. How few in all
this world have been so devoted to science! And yet how many expect
success without this devotion!
The same gentleman writes of Newton, "His carriage was very meek,
sedate, and humble, never seemingly angry, of profound thought, his
countenance mild, pleasant, and comely. I cannot say I ever saw him
laugh but once."
In 1687, when Newton was forty-five, his _Philosophiae Naturalis
Principia Mathematica_ was published. "The _Principia_ consists of three
books. The First Book, besides the definition and axioms, or laws of
motion, with which it begins, consists of fourteen sections, in the
first of which the author explains the method of prime and ultimate
ratios used in his investigations, and which is similar to the method of
fluxions. The other sections treat of centripetal forces, and motions in
fixed and movable orbits.
"The Second Book consists of nine sections, and treats of bodies moving
in resisting media, or oscillating as pendulums.
"The Third Book consists of five sections, on the Causes of the System
of the World, on the Quantity of Lunar Errors, on the Quantity of the
Tides, on the Precession of the Equinoxes, and on Comets."
The great principle of the _Principia_ is universal gravitation, "That
every particle of matter in the universe is attracted by or gravitates
to every other particle of matter, with a force inversely proportional
to the squares of their distances." By the laws of gravity, Newton was
enabled to calculate the quantity of matter in the sun, and in all the
planets, and even to determine their density, results which Adam Smith
said "were above the reach of human reason and experience." He
ascertained that the weight of the same body would be twenty-three
times greater at the surface of the sun than at the surface of the
earth, and that the density of the earth was four times greater than
that of the sun. He found the true figure of the earth; he explained the
phenomena of the tides.
Of the "Principia," Sir David Brewster says, in his able life of Sir
Isaac Newton, it is "a work which will be memorable not only in the
annals of one science or of one country, but which will form an epoch in
the history of the world, and will ever be regarded as the brightest
page in the records of human reason,--a work, may we not add, which
would be read with delight in every planet of our system,--in every
system of the universe. What a glorious privilege was it to have been
the author of the 'Principia'!
"There was but one earth upon whose form, and tides, and movements, the
philosopher could exercise his genius,--one moon whose perturbations and
inequalities and actions he could study,--one sun whose controlling
force and apparent motions he could calculate and determine,--one system
of planets whose mutual disturbances could tax his highest reason,--one
system of comets whose eccentric paths he could explore and
rectify,--and one universe of stars to whose binary and multiple
combinations he could extend the law of terrestrial gravity.
"To have been the chosen sage summoned to the study of that earth, these
systems, and that universe, the favored lawgiver to worlds unnumbered,
the high priest in the temple of boundless space,--was a privilege that
could be granted but one member of the human family;--and to have
executed the last was an achievement which, in its magnitude, can be
measured only by the infinite in space, and in the duration of its
triumphs by the infinite in time. That sage,--that lawgiver,--that high
priest was Newton."
The "Principia" created the greatest interest throughout Europe, but met
with violent opposition. While Laplace said it would take "pre-eminence
above all the other productions of human genius," the majority could not
believe that great planets were suspended in empty space, and retained
in their orbits by an invisible power in the sun.
When Newton presented copies to the heads of colleges, some of them, Dr.
Babington of Trinity among the number, said, "they might study seven
years before they understood anything of it."
In 1687, Newton's method of fluxions was first published, twenty years
after its invention, and then because the friends of Leibnitz, the
author of the "Differential Calculus," claimed priority of discovery.
The quarrel aroused the scientific world, embittered the silent
mathematician, and impaired his health.
In 1689, when he was forty-seven, he was chosen member of parliament,
and represented Cambridge University in the House of Commons for
thirteen months. He took no active part in the debates, but was of
course respected for his wonderful mind.
This same year, his beloved mother died. Anxiously he had watched
through whole nights by her bedside, seeking in all ways to keep her
from leaving him alone in the world.
He was now nearly fifty. His life had been laborious, with an
insufficient income. His friends, John Locke among the number, tried to
obtain various positions for him, but failed. They recommended him for
provost of King's College, but the position could not be obtained
because he had not taken priest's orders.
Seemingly unappreciated, worn with his incessant brain work, his
appetite failing, and unable to sleep, with neither mother nor wife to
comfort him, the sensitive organization of the great man became
overstrained, and mind and body were unfitted for work. It is stated
that his ill health was in part consequent upon the burning of some
manuscripts on optics, by a lighted candle on the table among his
papers.
When he was fifty-three, the long hard road of poverty turned into a
highway of plenty, through the influence of a friend. Charles Montague,
an associate of Newton at the university and also in parliament, though
nineteen years his junior,--intellectual affinities are uninfluenced by
age,--had been made Commissioner of the Treasury, then Privy Councillor,
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and later still, Baron of Halifax.
Lord Halifax appointed Newton to be Warden of the Mint, and then Master,
with an income of between six thousand and seven thousand five hundred
dollars annually, which position he held for the remainder of his life.
His home in London, where he kept six servants, with his brilliant
niece, Miss Catherine Barton, for his companion, became a place of rest
and comfort to the tired philosopher. Lord Halifax was a great admirer
of Newton's niece, Miss Catherine Barton, to whom he left, at his death,
a beautiful home and twenty-five thousand dollars, "as a token of the
sincere love, affection, and esteem I have long had for her person, and
as a small recompense for the pleasure and happiness I have had in her
conversation."
The days of privation were over, and Newton had earned this rest and
prosperity. Great people often came to dine with him. At one of his
dinners, Newton proposed to drink, not to the health of kings and
princes, but to all honest persons, to whatever country they belonged.
"We are all friends," he added, "because we unanimously aim at the only
object worthy of man, which is the knowledge of truth. We are also of
the same religion, because, leading a simple life, we conform ourselves
to what is right, and we endeavor sincerely to give to the Supreme Being
that worship which, according to our feeble lights, we are persuaded
will please him most."
Other honors now come to Newton. In 1703, he was elected President of
the Royal Society, and was annually reelected during the remaining
twenty-five years of his life. On April 16, 1705, when he was
sixty-three, Queen Anne conferred the honor of knighthood upon her most
illustrious subject, Sir Isaac Newton, before a distinguished company at
Cambridge University. In 1704, the year previous, his great work on
optics had been published, written over twenty years before.
About this time, it seems that the great philosopher would have liked to
marry Lady Norris, the widow of Sir William Norris, Baronet of Speke,
and Member of Parliament. Sent to Delhi as ambassador to the Great
Mogul, he died in 1702, between Mauritius and St. Helena, on his
homeward passage. He was the third husband to Lady Norris, and Sir
Isaac, now over sixty, desired to be the fourth, as appears from the
following letter:--
"Madam,--Your ladyship's great grief at the loss of Sir William
shows that if he had returned safe home, your ladyship could have
been glad to have lived still with a husband, and therefore your
aversion at present from marrying again can proceed from nothing
else than the memory of him whom you have lost. To be always
thinking on the dead, is to live a melancholy life among
sepulchres, and how much grief is an enemy to your health, is very
manifest by the sickness it brought when you received the first
news of your widowhood. And can your ladyship resolve to spend
the rest of your days in grief and sickness?
"Can you resolve to wear a widow's habit perpetually,--a habit
which is less acceptable to company, a habit which will be always
putting you in mind of your lost husband, and thereby promote you
grief and indisposition till you leave it off? The proper remedy
for all these mischiefs is a new husband, and whether your
ladyship should admit of a proper remedy for such maladies, is a
question which I hope will not need much time to consider of.
"Whether your ladyship should go constantly in the melancholy
dress of a widow, or flourish once more among the ladies; whether
you should spend the rest of your days cheerfully or in sadness,
in health or in sickness, are questions which need not much
consideration to decide them. Besides that your ladyship will be
better able to live according to your quality by the assistance of
a husband than upon your own estate alone; and, therefore, since
your ladyship likes the person proposed, I doubt not but in a
little time to have notice of your ladyship's inclinations to
marry, at least, that you will give him leave to discourse with
you about it.
"I am, madam, your ladyship's most humble and most obedient
servant."
If Lady Norris "liked the person proposed," as Sir Isaac imagined, a
marriage was not the result. It is just possible that he was like
Leibnitz, who proposed to a lady when he was fifty. The lady asked for
time to take the matter into consideration, and as Leibnitz thus
obtained leisure to consider the matter again, he was never married.
For thirteen years Sir Isaac lived on Jermyn Street, London; then moved
to Chelsea, a place dear to those who love George Eliot or admire
Carlyle; and then to Martin Street, near Leicester Fields.
In his latter years he wrote much on theological subjects, especially to
prove the existence of a Deity. When he was eighty-three he published a
third edition of the "Principia." At eighty-five he read manuscript
without spectacles. He reasoned as acutely as ever, his memory alone
failing.
On March 2, 1727, he presided at a meeting of the Royal Society. He was
taken ill on the following day, and, although a great sufferer for
several days, never uttered a complaint. He died on Monday, March 20,
and his body was laid in the Jerusalem Chamber, and thence conveyed to
Westminster Abbey for burial. The pall was supported by the Lord High
Chancellor and several Dukes and Earls.
On the front of his monument are sculptured youths, bearing in their
hands emblematic designs of Newton's principal discoveries. One carries
a prism, another a reflecting telescope, a third is weighing the sun and
planets with a steelyard, a fourth is employed about a furnace, and two
others are loaded with money newly coined. The monument bears this
inscription.
HERE LIES
SIR ISAAC NEWTON, KNIGHT,
Who by a vigor of mind, almost supernatural,
First demonstrated
The motions and figures of the Planets,
The Paths of the Comets, and the
Tides of the Ocean.
He diligently investigated
The different refrangibilities of the Rays of Light,
And the properties of the Colors to which
they give rise.
An Assiduous, Sagacious, and Faithful Interpreter
of Nature, Antiquity, and the Holy Scriptures,
He asserted in his Philosophy the Majesty of
God, and exhibited in his Conduct the
simplicity of the Gospel.
Let Mortals rejoice that there has existed
such and so great
AN ORNAMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE.
Born 25 Dec., 1642; Died 20 March, 1727.
A beautiful full-length, white marble statue of Sir Isaac was erected in
the ante-chapel of Trinity College, where he had done his wonderful
work, when scarcely more than a boy.
While he gave generously during his life, he said, "they who give
nothing till they die, never give at all,"--he left a personal estate of
one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, to be divided among his nephews
and nieces.
The world honored him at last, and has through all the years. Bishop
Burnet said, "Newton had the _whitest_ soul he ever knew." His habits
were of the best. When asked to take snuff or tobacco, he declined,
saying, "he would make no necessities to himself."
He was modest to the last, saying, "that whatever service he had done
the public was not owing to any extraordinary sagacity, but solely to
industry and patient thought." He said, a short time before his death:
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to
have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself
in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
me."
CARL LINNAEUS.
[Illustration: CARL LINNAEUS.]
It was on the 24th of July that we left Stockholm, the Venice of the
North, built on her nine islands, for the famous university town of
Upsala, Sweden. The ride, of about two hours by rail, lay along fine
fields of wheat, blue with corn-flowers, and past comfortable-looking
red farmhouses and barns.
The town, of thirteen thousand people, is quaint and quiet, yet most
interesting to a stranger. We wander over the grand old Gothic
cathedral, begun six hundred years ago. Here is the silver-gilt
sarcophagus of King Eric IX., who died in 1160, and of John III. Here,
also, that of Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of Sweden, on a high marble
pedestal supported by pillars, a recumbent figure of a wife on either
side. A third wife is buried near by. The walls of the chapel where he
lies are covered with frescoes, depicting scenes in that wonderful life;
from the rags of the miner, to the sumptuousness of the throne.
But especially are we interested in a plain slab, underneath which
sleeps the man who, more than any other, has immortalized Upsala
University, and helped to make Sweden an intellectual and studious
country. Near by is the monument of dark porphyry, with the plain,
shaven face in bronze, wreathed with laurel, and the words "_Carolo a
Linne Botanicorum Principi Amici et Discipuli, 1798._"
Then we turn our steps to the University, the pride and hope of Sweden.
Here fifteen hundred gather, not in dormitories--which were tried fifty
years ago and discarded--but scattered in various homes, as in the
German universities. Women are educated here on equal terms with men,
and we are assured by the professors that, though admitted only a few
years ago, their presence is most helpful, and the plan has proved
entirely successful. No duels are allowed, these having been abolished
by stringent laws two hundred years ago; a thing Germany should long
since have done, and thus ended this brutal custom.
Here is the Astronomical Observatory, the Chemical Laboratory, Anatomy
Building, Academic Department, and handsome library with two hundred
thousand volumes and over seven thousand manuscripts. Here we look at
the celebrated "Codex Argenteus," a translation of the four Gospels by
Bishop Ulfila, dating from the second half of the fourth century,
written on one hundred and eighty-eight leaves of parchment--gold and
silver letters on a reddish ground; and the manuscript of Frithiof's
Saga, by Tegner.
Now we visit the Botanic Garden, which Linnaeus so loved and developed,
and go over the two-and-a-half-story stuccoed house, cream-colored,
where the great naturalist lived and entertained princes. Under these
dark poplars, enormous in size, he taught the pupils who came from all
parts of the world to hear him. The dark, closed blinds are as he left
them, for Sweden would not change one thing about the precious home. Too
little in our own country do we treasure the homes of those who give
honor to the nation.
The history of Linnaeus is, indeed, a romance. Few have had such great
struggles with poverty; few have come off such conquerors. Few lives
have given to the world such lessons of cheerfulness, of perseverance,
and of untiring industry. He was born, May, 1707, at Rashult, in the
south of Sweden, the son of a poor minister, and the eldest of five
children. The father, Nils Linnaeus, had obtained his education by the
hardest toil, and, while he had only poverty to offer his family, he
gave them what money could not buy, tender affection, and the inspiring
influence of a cultivated mind that loved nature and studied her
closely. His mother, Christina, a woman of sense, prudence, and good
judgment, was his idol. He wrote of her in later years: "She possessed
all the virtues of her sex, devoting the utmost attention to impressing
on my mind the love of virtue, both in precept and example."
From a child he was fond of his father's garden, and gathered from the
fields all kinds of wild flowers. He says of himself in his
autobiography: "He was scarcely four years old when he accompanied his
father at a feast at Moekler, and in the evening, it being a very
pleasant season of the year, the guests seated themselves on some
flowery turf, listening to the pastor, who made various remarks on the
names and properties of the plants, showing them the roots of the
succisa, tormentilla, orchids, etc. The child paid the most
uninterrupted attention to all he saw and heard, and from that hour
never ceased harassing his father about the name, qualities, and nature
of every plant he met with; indeed, he very often asked more than his
father was able to answer, but, like other children, he used immediately
to forget what he had learned, and especially the _names_ of plants.
Hence the father was sometimes put out of humor, and refused to answer
him unless he would promise to remember what was told him. Nor had this
harshness any bad effect, for he afterward retained with ease whatever
he heard."
When he was eight, a piece of ground was assigned him, which was called
"Carl's Garden." Here he gathered plants and flowers, and introduced so
many rare weeds that his father had great trouble in eradicating them!
So interested did Carl become, that he had nests of wild bees and wasps,
not agreeable playthings usually.
But the play days with weeds and wasps came to an end, for the bright
boy had to go to school. His first teacher was "a passionate and morose
man, better calculated for extinguishing a youth's talents than for
improving them," and the next "pursued the same methods, preferring
stripes and punishments to encouragements and admonitions." There was
little time now for the precious study of flowers. At seventeen he had
to go to a gymnasium or high school, where he would be taught classics,
and made ready for the ministry, like his father. He had no fondness for
the languages, neither for theology or metaphysics: but having obtained
two books on botany, he read them day and night, committing them to
memory. The teachers and scholars called him "the little botanist."
What was his father's chagrin, when he came to the school to visit him,
to hear that Carl was quite unfit for the ministry, but would probably
make a good tailor or shoemaker! Poor as he was, he had kept his boy at
school for about twelve years. Now, well-nigh disheartened, he stopped,
on his way home, to confer with his family physician, Dr. Rothmann. That
good man suggested that the boy might like medicine, and accomplish
great things in natural history. He offered to take him into his own
home, and give him lessons in physiology, which kind proposal the father
accepted, though with little faith. The doctor also taught him botany,
and Carl grew happy under the new _regime_.
The next year he was sent to the University of Lund, with the following
not very creditable certificate from the head master of the Gymnasium:
"Youth at school may be compared to shrubs in a garden, which will
sometimes, though rarely, elude all the care of the gardener, but if
transplanted into a different soil, may become fruitful trees. With this
view, therefore, and no other, the bearer is sent to the University,
where it is possible that he may meet with a climate propitious to his
progress." Through a friend, entrance was obtained without showing the
obnoxious certificate.
Carl took lodgings at the house of Dr. Stobaeus, physician to the king,
who gave him access to his minerals, shells, and dried plants. Delighted
at this, the youth at once began to make a collection of his own, and
glue them on paper. He longed to gain access to Dr. Stobaeus's library,
but how should it be accomplished? Finally a young German student, to
whom he taught physiology, surreptitiously gained the books needed, and
young Linnaeus spent nearly the whole nights in reading. The doctor's
aged mother did not understand why their lodger kept his light burning
into the small hours, and besought her son to investigate. He did so,
and found the crestfallen Carl reading his own library books. He forgave
the student, took him to his own table and treated him as a son.
Advised by Dr. Rothmann to go to Upsala for better medical
opportunities, he proceeded thither, and here began his bitterest
poverty. His father could give him only forty dollars. As he was
unknown, and without influence, he could obtain no private pupils.
Starvation actually stared him in the face. He says, "he was obliged to
trust to chance for a meal, and in the article of dress, was reduced to
such shifts that he was obliged, when his shoes required mending, to
patch them with folded paper, instead of sending them to the cobbler."
Often hungry and half clothed, there seemed nothing before the poor
Swedish lad but obscurity and early death.
One day in autumn, as he was examining some plants in the Academical
Garden, a venerable clergyman, Dr. Olaf Celsius, saw him, and asked him
where he came from, how long he had been at the college, and what he
knew about plants. He, too, was interested in botany, and was preparing
a work on the plants mentioned in the Bible. Perhaps something in Carl's
face or manner touched the minister's heart, for he asked him to go home
with him, and soon offered him board in his own house, and gave him
access to his valuable library.
The tide of adversity was beginning to turn. Some pupils were obtained,
and a little money flowed into the empty pockets. At twenty-two, by a
close examination of the stamens and pistils of flowers, he decided upon
a new method of arrangement by the sexes of plants, which, in after
years, became the basis of his great fame. This procured him the
appointment of Assistant Lecturer to Dr. Rudbeck in the Botanical
Garden, where, but a year before, he had asked to be the gardener!
He still had little money, but, what was equally useful, some leisure
time. He began his great works, which were not completed for seven
years, "Bibliotheca Botanica," "Classes Plantarum," "Critica Botanica,"
and "Genera Plantarum," "letting," as he said, "not a minute pass
unoccupied during his residence at Upsala. For the latter work he
examined the characters of eight thousand flowers."
Scarcely had he begun this valuable labor, when the envy of one of the
professors became as hard to bear as his previous poverty, and, through
friends, he obtained an appointment to study the natural history of
Lapland. It was a hazardous expedition for a young man of twenty-five.
Now he climbed steep rocks, "which," he says, "broke loose from a spot
which my late guide had just passed, and fell exactly where I had been,
with such force that it struck fire as it went." Once, when floating
down a river, the raft parted in the middle, and he narrowly escaped
drowning. "All my food," he says, "in those fatiguing excursions,
consisted, for the most part, of fish and reindeer's milk. Bread, salt,
and what is found everywhere else, did but seldom recreate my palate."
He travelled nearly four thousand miles, mostly on foot, often through
bogs and marshes, with the water to his knees, yet always cheerful,
always enthusiastic. On presenting his report to the University, on his
return home, they gave him about fifty dollars for his travelling
expenses for five months!
A single incident shows the tender heart of the young explorer. Very few
birds were visible except the ptarmigan. He says: "The little Alpine
variety of the ptarmigan was now accompanied by its young. I caught one
of these, upon which the hen ran so close to me that I could easily have
taken her also. She kept continually jumping round and round me, but I
thought it a pity to deprive the tender brood of their mother; neither
would my compassion for the mother allow me long to detain her
offspring, which I returned to her in safety." Tenderness to animals
seems to be a striking characteristic of great men and women.
During the journey, he found a modest little flower in the great
northern forests, in the moss, and this he named _Linnaea borealis_,
thinking it was so like himself, expanding in obscurity. He chose for
his motto, _Tantus amor florum_, "So great is the love for flowers."
On his return to Upsala, he began courses of private lectures in
medicine, but so bitter was the envy of the before-mentioned professor
that the archbishop was prevailed upon to prohibit private lectures.
Thus deprived of a livelihood, Linnaeus turned his attention to
mineralogy, visiting the Swedish mines. The Governor of Dalecarlia was
so pleased with him that he engaged him to investigate the productions
of his country. Here he fell in love with the daughter of John Moraeus, a
well-to-do physician.
Sara Elizabeth reciprocated the affections of the young man, who was
told by the father that he must wait three years for a final answer;
for, in truth, Linnaeus's financial prospects were not bright. The
University of Upsala did not want him, and there seemed to be no hope of
writing or publishing his books on botany. But a man usually achieves
little, who does not fight his way at every step. Now, indeed, for
love's sake he must make his mark.
After saving about seventy-five dollars, he decided to go to Germany,
and take his doctor's degree; but first he must visit his home, out of
which his beloved mother had gone at forty-five. "Alas! alas, my
mother!" was all he could say, as the tears fell fast upon her grave.
She had witnessed his poverty and his heroism; she was not to witness
his great renown.
At Hamburg he spent a month, receiving civilities from many scientific
men. He showed his good sense in feeling in no wise humiliated because
he was poor, a valuable lesson for poor young men and women to learn. At
Leyden, good fortune came to him. Dr. Gronovius was so pleased with the
manuscript of his "Systema Naturae" that he requested to publish it at
his own expense. By his advice, Carl waited upon the celebrated
physician, Boerhaave, and after eight days gained admittance. So famous
was this man that when the Emperor of China sent a letter to "Boerhaave,
the famous physician in Europe," it easily reached him. He advised a
rich banker, Mr. Clifford, to have Linnaeus describe his magnificent
collection of plants, and to send him to England and elsewhere, to
collect specimens for him. This was indeed a blessing. "Here in
England," he says, "I lived like a prince, and had one of the finest
gardens of the world under my inspection." A society in Amsterdam
advanced the money to pay for the plates for his "Flora Lapponica," and
fame seemed really to be coming at last.
In his visit to England, Sir Hans Sloane, who founded the British
Museum, looked upon him coldly because he had suggested a different
system in natural history from his own! At Oxford, Dillenius said to
friends, sarcastically: "See, this is the young man who confounds all
botany!" Linnaeus felt hurt, and, when about to take his departure from
the city, asked the scientist why he had treated him thus. After the
young student had explained his work, Dillenius became his warm friend,
and pressed him to stay, and even to share his salary with him. Linnaeus
was greatly pleased with London, and when he saw the golden furze in its
green leaves, fell on his knees before it.
On his return to Germany he went to the death-bed of Boerhaave, whose
parting words were: "I have lived out my time and done what I could. May
God preserve thee, from whom the world expects much more! Farewell, my
dear Linnaeus!"
He now hastened to the idol of his heart in Sweden, and what was his
amazement to find that the friend to whom he had intrusted his
correspondence with Sara Elizabeth had been trying to win her for
himself! Perhaps it would have been quite as well for Linnaeus had he
succeeded! However, matters were amicably adjusted, and the long waiting
lover became engaged.
He repaired at once to Stockholm to begin the practice of medicine,
still keeping as near Upsala University as possible. And here troubles
began anew. He says: "Being unknown to everybody, people were unwilling
to trust their lives in my hands. Nay, they even hesitated to trust me
with their dogs! Abroad, I had been honored in every place as Princeps
Botanicorum; but in my own country I was looked upon as a _Klim_, newly
arrived from the subterranean regions! No one cared how many sleepless
nights and toilsome hours I passed. Had I not been in love I would
certainly have left Sweden and gone abroad."
After a time a fortunate cure effected by him brought him speedy
popularity. "No invalid could now recover without my assistance. I was
busy from four in the morning till late in the evening; nor were my
nights left undisturbed." He was soon chosen a member of the Upsala
Academy, and at the request of the king, through his tutor, Count
Tessin, gave public lectures on botany and mineralogy.
And now the rising botanist desired to claim his bride. They were
accordingly married June 26, 1739, when Linnaeus was thirty-two. Dr.
Moraeus had waited long enough to see that his daughter was making no
mistake. Life now flowed on smoothly. If the "little wife," as he called
her, governed him with no very gentle sway in after years, she had
great influence over him, and it is said that at her instigation he
persecuted his only son. All the more is Linnaeus to be admired for
accomplishing such a grand work with domestic hindrances. It takes a
very great man to be great when his home is not a help to him! However,
he always regarded her as "one of the choicest gifts bestowed upon him."
His medical practice brought him plenty of money, but he wrote to a
friend: "Once I had plants and no money: now what is money good for
without plants?" Soon the desire of his heart was granted, and he was
made Professor of Botany at Upsala University, also superintendent of
the Botanical Garden.
Now he says: "I render thanks to the Almighty, who has ordered my lot so
that I live at this day; and live, too, happier than the King of Persia.
I think myself thus blessed because in this academic garden I am
principal. This is my Rhodus, or, rather, my Elysium; here I enjoy the
spoils of the East and the West, and, if I mistake not, that which far
excels in beauty the garments of the Babylonians and the porcelain of
China."
His fame grew rapidly. He published, in 1745, his "Flora Suecica," and a
year later his "Fauna Suecica," a description of Swedish plants and
animals. His lectures soon, by their enthusiasm and eloquence, brought
listeners from all parts of Europe. The number of students in the
university grew from five hundred to fifteen hundred, young men coming
even from America to hear the great botanist. During the summer he made
excursions twice a week, often at the head of two hundred students, and
when some rare plant was discovered, the news was announced to the
others by horn or trumpet. His scholars, imbued with his spirit, went
over the world in scientific investigation. Some died in the Arabian
deserts; some in the swamps of Africa. From foreign students he would
take no fee, as he desired to show them how he loved his work. Once he
said to a German student: "Tell me, candidly, are you rich, and can you
afford it? If you can, then give the money to my wife; but, if you be
poor, so help me Heaven, I will not take a single farthing from you!"
Most of the scientific societies of Europe made him a member after his
great works were published. The Imperial Academy called him "Dioscorides
Secundus"; a gold medal was struck in his honor in 1746, and the king
made him dean of the College of Physicians. He published two valuable
medical books, and received the honor of the Knight of the Polar Star,
never before conferred for literary merit. He was made a noble, and took
for his motto, _Famam extendere factis_, adorning his crest with the
little flower which he discovered in his poverty. He was made rector of
the university, holding the position for several years. How different
from the time when he could obtain only a chance meal, and covered up
the holes in his torn shoes!
He bought two estates, living at one of them--Hammerby--for fifteen
years. In 1774, when he was sixty-seven, he suffered an attack of
apoplexy in the Botanical Garden, and, two years later, another stroke
made him a paralytic. When he could no longer walk, he used to be
carried to his museum, and look long and earnestly at his treasures,
gathered from every clime. His memory so failed him that he mixed the
Greek and Latin letters, and forgot even his own name. On the 10th of
January, 1778, death came to him in his sleep.
The university went into mourning, the king made a public address, and
the whole nation regarded it as an irreparable loss. His herbarium and
library were sold, after a time, by the wife, to Sir James E. Smith, the
founder of the Linnaean Society, of London, where these treasures are now
to be seen, and most of the one hundred and eighty works which he
published during forty-five years. It is said that the King of Sweden,
on learning that the work of Linnaeus was going out of the country, sent
a man-of-war to recover it, but without avail.
Linnaeus was small in body, with large head, and the bright, piercing
eyes which usually characterize men and women of genius.
Of his six children, the oldest soon became professor of botany, to
assist, and then succeed, his father, but he lacked the parent's just
and honorable love of fame. The eldest daughter inherited much of his
ability, being the first to discover the luminous property of the
nasturtium flowers at night. Sara Elizabeth survived her noble husband
many years, and now lies beside him in the cathedral.
BARON CUVIER.
[Illustration: BARON CUVIER.]
In the town of Montbeliard, France, then belonging to the Duke of
Wuertemberg, August 23, 1769, was born the founder of the Science of
Comparative Anatomy; the greatest naturalist of his time, Georges
Leopold Chretien Frederic Dagobert Cuvier. His father was a brave
officer in a Swiss regiment, who at fifty married a young lady of
unusual ability. Their first son died, and the second, Georges, was so
feeble in constitution that his life was saved only by the tenderest
care of his mother.
For this mother the boy cherished the most ardent affection. While she
lived, there was nothing left undone that a loving nature could do for
her. When she died, everything connected with her memory became sacred.
When Cuvier had become honored by kings and nobles, when the great from
all the world delighted to bring him offerings, nothing so touched his
heart as the gift of a bouquet of red stocks, her favorite flower.
Perchance the benignity that came into his face in later years was the
result of these sweet remembrances.
She taught him to read at four, and, though ignorant of Latin, she made
him repeat his lessons to her daily, so that he was the best prepared of
any boy in school. She read to him history and general literature. She
made him draw under her inspection. She talked with him about books till
a passion for reading became the chief characteristic of his nature. No
wonder that he loved such an inspiring woman. The history of most great
men emphasizes the fact that the mothers cannot be too highly educated.
At ten years of age he was placed in a high school, called a Gymnase,
where for four years he studied Latin, Greek, history, geography, and
mathematics, and was constantly at the head of his classes. Naturally
enthusiastic, he played as heartily as he studied.
As is often the case, a book turned the course of his life, and made him
famous. At the Gymnase he found a work of Gesner, the Swiss naturalist,
and this, with its colored plates, first turned his attention to natural
history. This liking was intensified by finding at the house of a
relative the complete works of Buffon, the noted naturalist, who wrote
thirty-six volumes in his own brilliant and poetic style, describing the
animal kingdom. The boy became intensely interested in the habits of
quadrupeds and birds; their form, their color, and their homes. He
copied the illustrations in the work, and colored them with paint or
pieces of silk. He always carried a volume of Buffon in his pocket to
read when he had a moment of leisure. At twelve, he was a well-read
naturalist.
In his last year in the Gymnase, when he was fourteen, he chose a
certain number of his school-fellows, and formed an Academy. Every
Thursday he gathered the lads into his room, and placing them around a
table, seated himself upon his bed, and after some book had been read on
natural history, philosophy, history, or travels, he asked their
opinions of it, and then, being president, summed up the argument in a
clear and concise manner. The mother's seed-sowing in the mind of her
ardent boy was bearing fruit.
As the family were poor, and had only a soldier's pension to support
them, it was decided that Georges should enter the free school at
Tuebingen, and prepare for the church. But the principal of the Gymnase,
who had never forgiven the boy for some playful trick, placed his
composition in the third rank. Georges knew that it deserved the first
rank, and that this low standard would affect his position in college.
He, therefore, resolved not to enter Tuebingen, and, though he was
thereby lost to the church, he was saved for great scientific work.
A fortunate thing now happened. A woman, a princess, who knew about the
bright boy, spoke of him to her brother, Duke Charles of Wuertemberg.
When the duke visited Montbeliard, he sent for the lad, questioned him
as to what he had learned, asked to see his drawings, and ended by
sending him free of expense to the University of Stuttgart, to enter his
own Academy, called the Academy Caroline. It seemed a little thing for a
lady to speak of a boy's studiousness and great love of books, but it
proved a great thing for Georges Cuvier and for the scientific world.
Thousands of women and men could do more of these little acts of
kindness, if they only thought of it. Well said Thomas Hood:--
"Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart."
The boy of fourteen said good-by to his devoted mother, and started for
Stuttgart, seated between the Chamberlain and the Secretary of the Grand
Duke. Both spoke German all the way, and the lonesome boy did not
understand a word. He entered the Academy May 4, 1784, and for four
years studied mathematics, law, philosophy, finance, and the like.
But he lost no opportunity to study natural history. A professor gave
him the works of Linnaeus, and he gained inspiration from the young man
who could travel four thousand miles through the marshes of Lapland,
nearly barefoot and half-starved, in his study of plants. Georges now
collected a herbarium. When he had leisure, he drew and colored insects,
birds, and flowers with great accuracy. He kept a number of living
insects in his room, constantly feeding them, and watching their habits.
He said years afterward, "If I had not studied insects from choice, when
I was at college, I should have done so later, from a conviction of its
necessity." He declared that the wonders he met with in the
organization of insects always elevated his thoughts.
Nine months after his arrival in Germany, he won the prize at the
Academy for excellence in the German language, receiving the order of
Chevalerie, an honor given only to five or six out of four hundred
pupils. This entitled the recipients to dine at a separate table, and to
enjoy many advantages under the immediate patronage of the Grand Duke.
When the four years of college life were over, the father's pension
having ceased on account of the disturbed financial condition of France,
the youth of eighteen needed to find employment at once. Nothing seemed
open to him but the position of tutor in a private family, a thing much
deprecated by his school-fellows, who had already built many air-castles
for his future.
But young Cuvier had the courage and the wisdom to do what necessity
required, and to do it cheerfully. In July, 1788, he entered the family
of Count d'Hericy in Caen, Normandy, and for six years taught his only
son. He took with him, says a friend, "these admirable foundations for
glory: a love of labor, depth of reflection, perseverance, and
uprightness of character." While teaching here, he met the nobility of
the surrounding country, increasing thereby his polish of manner and
tact, for which he was celebrated all his life.
Living by the sea, he was led to study marine animals. The casual
dissection of a calamar, a species of cuttle-fish, influenced him to
study the anatomy of mollusca, which afterward led to his great
classification of the whole animal kingdom. In this obscure corner of
Normandy, the young teacher observed, and committed his observations to
paper. Some young men would not have found time for such work. Those
only succeed who have sufficient force of character to make time for
what they wish to do. To allow one's time to be wasted, is to allow
one's opportunities for eminence to go by forever.
Nearly every evening Cuvier attended a small society of which he was
secretary, which gathered chiefly to discuss agricultural and kindred
topics. M. Tessier, living there in exile under an assumed name, the
author of several valuable articles in the Encyclopedia, was often
present, and between him and the young secretary a warm friendship soon
existed. As the friendship of the Marquis Guidubaldo proved valuable to
Galileo, so that of M. Tessier proved of great benefit to Cuvier. He led
the young and comparatively unknown naturalist, though some of his
articles had been published in learned journals, to correspond with
Geoffroy St. Hilaire, De Lacepede, and others on scientific subjects.
Through their influence he was finally called to Paris, made a member of
the Commission of Arts, and professor at the Central School of the
Pantheon.
He was only twenty-six, and this was but the beginning of honors. Here
he composed his "Elementary Treatise on the Natural History of
Animals." His great desire was to be attached to the Museum of Natural
History, where he could study the collections and enlarge them. Very
soon after his arrival in Paris, M. Mertrud was appointed to the newly
created chair of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes. He was
advanced in years. And now came the opportunity for friendship to do its
work. Geoffroy St. Hilaire and De Lacepede were his colleagues. They
urged that their friend Cuvier be appointed assistant, and Mertrud
gladly consented. This was indeed an honor, since Daubenton, Buffon,
Lamarck, and other European celebrities had filled this position.
Cuvier at once sent for his aged father, now nearly eighty years old,
and his only brother, Frederic, to make their home with him. The
precious mother had died two years previously. She did not live to see
the fame of her eldest son, but she must have been convinced of his
future greatness, and been comforted by the prospect.
From the moment of entering upon his new work, Cuvier began to develop
that wonderful collection in comparative anatomy which is now so
celebrated. Nothing ever turned him from his purpose of making this the
most extensive collection in the world; no sorrow, no legislative
duties, no absence. No one who has visited Paris will ever forget the
seventy-five acres in the Jardin des Plantes, with trees and flowers
from all the world; with thirteen rooms filled with skeletons and
anatomical preparations of all kinds; with eleven rooms in the gallery
of anthropology containing every variety of the human species, in casts,
mummies, and fossils; with the gallery of zooelogy containing over two
thousand mammalia, belonging to five hundred species, as many reptiles,
ten thousand birds, and over twenty-five hundred fishes; with immense
geological, mineralogical, and botanical collections; all a marvel of
industry and learning.
Cuvier now worked unceasingly. Sometimes his salary was in arrears, but
he bore it cheerfully, as he wrote a friend: "You are not to suppose
that Paris is so highly favored; for twelve months' pay are now due at
the Jardin des Plantes, and all the national establishments for public
instruction, in Paris as well as at Strasburg; and if we envy the
elephants, it is not because they are better paid than we are, but
because while living on credit, as we do, they are not aware of it, and
consequently are insensible to the pain it gives. You know the saying
about the French, that when they have no money they sing. We savants,
who are not musicians, work at our sciences instead of singing, which
comes to the same thing." He is a hero, indeed, who can breast poverty,
and work and sing in the midst of hardship. When he published his
"Annals of the Museum," he not only drew, but often engraved the plates
himself, when he was unable, for lack of means, to hire it done.
The National Institution was founded in 1796, and Cuvier was associated
with his friends De Lacepede and Daubenton, in the section of zooelogy,
holding the position of Secretary of Natural Sciences till his death.
Four years later, in 1800, the first two volumes of his "Lessons in
Comparative Anatomy" were published, and met with great success. The
last three volumes were issued five years later.
In this year, 1800, Cuvier received another honor, that of the
professorship of Natural Philosophy in the College de France. He was now
but thirty-one. The following year, Napoleon I., who was usually wise in
his selection of men, appointed him one of the six inspectors-general of
education, to establish public schools in thirty towns of France.
Every moment now seemed occupied, and yet while the brain was busy
perchance the heart was lonely. The father had died two years after the
mother. The wife of his brother Frederic had died, also, and the two
brothers were left alone. At thirty-four, Cuvier decided to take into
his heart and home the widow of M. Duvaucel, Fermier-General, who had
perished on the scaffold in 1794. The family had lost all their money in
the French Revolution, and Madame Duvaucel had four large children to be
supported; but Cuvier loved her for her rare mind and sweet disposition,
and she blessed the remaining years of his life. An educated man needs
companionship in mind; not simply a housekeeper.
Six years later one of her sons was assassinated in Portugal, during the
retreat of the French army. Another, while collecting for the Museum of
Paris, died in Madras, a young man of great talent and much beloved. A
daughter, Mlle. Duvaucel, lived to be the comfort of Cuvier's declining
years.
Happy in his home and absorbed with his work, Cuvier went forward to new
labors and new honors. M. Mertrud had died, and, instead of being
assistant at the Jardin des Plantes, Cuvier was now professor. In 1808
Napoleon made him counsellor for life of the Imperial University. The
next year he organized new academies in the Italian States, which were
now annexed to France. In 1811 he was sent on a similar mission to
Holland and the Hanseatic towns, and was made a chevalier, which rank
was assured to his heirs. Though he disliked to be absent from his
family, he went where duty called him, and wrote back fond letters to
his wife.
"MY TENDER FRIEND,--The weather, the road, the horses, and the
postilions have proved so excellent that we have reached Porte Sainte
Mayence before six o'clock; and I have bitterly regretted the two or
three good hours that I might still have passed with thee, without in
the least delaying my journey. At least believe that I have passed them
in my imagination, and that the remembrance of thy caresses and tender
friendship will form the happiness of my whole way." After some words to
the children, he added, "We are quite well, my good friend; we have
crossed an agreeable country; and we are in a tolerable inn. Our
carriage appears to be quite able to bear the journey; thus, up to this
moment, all goes well. Pray to God that this may last; thou art so good
that he cannot refuse thee. Adieu. A thousand tender kisses. G. C."
This year, 1811, appeared one of his most important works--that on
"Fossil Remains," which wrought a revolution in the study of geology. By
comparing living and fossil animals, Cuvier showed that huger creatures
had lived on the earth and become extinct before the creation of man. In
the first epoch he found great reptiles, like the Ichthyosaurus, thirty
feet long, and the Megalosaurus, seventy feet long. In the second epoch,
he found the Paleotherium; in the third, the Mammoth, Mastodon, and
gigantic sloth; and in the fourth epoch, man. So closely had he studied
the relations of the organs of animals, that he could reconstruct the
extinct fossil from a single bone. He had already prepared, at the
request of Napoleon, a brilliant "Report on the Progress of Natural
Sciences from the year 1789."
In 1813, though a Protestant, he was sent to Rome to organize a
university, and was made Master of Requests in the Council of State.
Napoleon also appointed him Commissaire Imperial Extraordinaire, and
sent him to endeavor to raise the people on the left bank of the Rhine
in favor of France, against the invading troops then marching upon
them. But Cuvier was stopped at Nancy by the entrance of the allied
armies, and obliged to return.
He was now famous, and his company and counsel were sought by the
learned and the great. And he was still a comparatively young man,
forty-four.
But life had great sorrows in the midst of this prosperity. His first
child, a son, had died a few weeks after his birth. His daughter Annie
had died in 1812, at the age of four, and now in 1813, while he was
absent in Rome, his only son, Georges, a boy of seven, had been taken
from him. The blow was a terrible one. For many years he never saw a boy
near that age, without being deeply affected. He would stop on the
streets to watch a group of boys playing, and then go on sadly, thinking
of the one he had buried.
In 1814, Cuvier was raised to the rank of Counsellor of State, and
Chancellor of the University. When Napoleon was asked why he had
appointed a savant to a political position, he replied, "that he may be
able to rest himself sometimes," knowing that to a man like Cuvier
change was the most helpful rest. When Napoleon abdicated his throne,
and Louis XVIII. came to power, Cuvier was retained in office, for his
rare administrative ability, and upright life.
Three years later, the first edition of his "Animal Kingdom" appeared,
and is now to be seen in the British Museum, in seventeen volumes. This
work has served as the basis for subsequent zooelogical classification.
Cuvier studied minutely the interior structure of animals, and based his
classification on this, instead of exterior resemblance.
After this great work was published, Cuvier went with his family to
London, for a rest of six weeks. Here he received distinguished
attention from Sir William Herschel, and other learned men.
In 1819, he was appointed President of the Committee of the Interior,
and in this position, which he held for life, it is believed ten
thousand various matters passed through his hands each year, for his
examination and decision. He officiated at the crowning of Charles X.,
as one of the presidents of the Council of State, and received from that
monarch the decoration of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. His
former sovereign, the King of Wuertemberg, appointed him Commander of the
Order of the Crown.
All this time in which he was doing earnest and responsible work for his
country, he was writing and lecturing almost constantly. So careful was
he of his time, that he always read or wrote as he was riding in his
carriage through the streets of Paris. A lamp in the back of his
carriage he used at night, till he found that he was injuring his eyes.
Even while he was sitting for a portrait, to be used as a frontispiece
for his book, "Discourse on the Revolutions of the Globe," his wife's
daughter read to him the "Fortunes of Nigel." In the evenings, when he
was too tired for scientific research, his wife or daughter read to him
general literature.
Every Saturday evening a reception was held at the home of Baron Cuvier,
and there one was sure to meet the most brilliant and learned from all
parts of Europe, whether rich or poor....
Cuvier delighted everybody by his courtesy and his cordiality. Another
person also was the life of these gatherings,--his beautiful daughter
Clementine, his only remaining child. Never strong in body, she had been
reared with the tenderest care. Devoted to all good work, reading to
aged women, visiting the poor, educated, and of extreme loveliness of
character, she was the idol of her family and of society. On the 25th of
August, 1828, she was to have been married, but, while in the midst of
the preparations, she fell ill of consumption, and died the following
month, September 28.
The effect on both parents was crushing. Cuvier's light hair grew white,
and lines gathered in his face. After two months he took his place again
at the head of the Committee of the Interior. He listened attentively to
all the discussions, but when it came his turn to speak, he burst into
tears, and covered his bowed face in his hands, and sobbed bitterly.
Finally he raised his head and said, "Pardon me, gentlemen, I was a
father, and I have lost all!" and then with a violent effort he resumed
the business of the day, with his usual calmness.
He devoted himself now more than ever to his books, as though he must
use every moment, or be prostrated with grief. This same year, 1828, the
first book in a series of twenty volumes, beautifully illustrated,
appeared, on the "Natural History of Fishes, containing more than five
thousand species of those animals, described after nature, and
distributed according to their affinities, with observations on their
anatomy, and critical researches on their nomenclature, ancient as well
as modern."
In 1832, he was created a Peer of France, by Louis Philippe. Every honor
had come that could be asked or desired. His books were eagerly read;
crowds attended his lectures; he was loved, honored, and revered; but
death had robbed him of the sweetest things in life.
On Tuesday, May 8, 1832, he lectured as usual before the College de
France, on the "History and Progress of Science in all Ages." In the
evening he felt a numbness in his right arm. It was the beginning of the
end. Paralysis soon developed.
He said to M. Pasquier, President of the Chamber of Peers, "Behold a
very different person to the man of Tuesday--of Saturday. Nevertheless,
I had great things still to do. All was ready in my head; after thirty
years of labor and research, there remained but to write; and now the
hands fail, and carry with them the head."
M. Pasquier tenderly expressed the universal interest felt for M.
Cuvier. "I like to think so," said the dying man; "I have long labored
to render myself worthy of it." He is to be pitied, indeed, who does
not care whether the world loves him.
On May 13, the nomination of Cuvier to the presidency of the whole
Council of State was taken to the sovereign for his signature, but it
came too late. Cuvier died that day. Four hours before his death he had
asked to be taken into the room where he had met and talked with so many
of the renowned of earth, and where his Clementine had charmed them by
her presence. And there he died.
He was buried in Pere la Chaise, by his own request, under the tombstone
which covered Clementine, and whose death had virtually caused his own.
His coffin was borne by the pupils of the different colleges in which he
had taught, thousands following it to the cemetery. His library of
nineteen thousand volumes was purchased by the government for the Jardin
des Plantes. There was no child left to bear his titles.
Not only do the books of such a man live; his whole life, with its
untiring energy, its promptness, its order, its unfaltering purpose,
its high aims, as well as its tenderness and nobility of heart, is a
constant inspiration.
SIR WILLIAM AND CAROLINE HERSCHEL.
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL.]
In Hanover, Germany, in the year 1732, Isaac Herschel and a plain,
industrious girl, Anna Ilse Moritzen, began their home life together.
The young man did not like the calling of his father, the cultivating of
the royal gardens, and learned to play the oboe in the royal band.
He became skilled in music, and, as, one after another, ten children
were born into the little home, he taught them to play on the violin and
oboe, and such other branches of knowledge as he possessed. After a time
his health became impaired with exposure in the Seven Years' War, and
then he earned his living by lessons in music, given to scholars at his
home.
The children attended the garrison school in Hanover, and learned the
ordinary rudiments, besides French and German. Though the father
sometimes copied music half the night to eke out his scanty living, he
spared no pains to teach them all he could of his favorite art.
The fourth son, William, born November 15, 1738, not only learned French
and English rapidly, but studied Latin and arithmetic with the teacher,
after hours. He became passionately fond of books, reading their own
little store with avidity. The mother, who could not even write, viewed
with alarm this intellectual development, feeling that her children, if
they became learned, would go away from home--possibly from Germany.
Poor, ignorant heart! She cooked and sewed, and prevented her daughters
from learning French or drawing; but her weak hand could not stay the
power of a mind like William's, bent on acquiring knowledge.
Caroline, the eighth child, born in 1750, twelve years younger than
William, looked upon this brother as a marvel; and shy, plain, and
silent herself, watched the boy with pride, who, perchance, would be
somebody by and by. Alexander, a little older than Caroline, was skilled
on the violoncello, and both the boys became members of the Hanover foot
guards.
Years later, Caroline gave this picture of that early life: "My brothers
were often introduced as solo performers and assistants in the orchestra
of the court, and I remember that I was frequently prevented from going
to sleep by the lively criticism on music, on coming from a concert; or
by conversations on philosophical subjects, which lasted frequently till
morning, in which my father was a lively partaker and assistant of my
brother William, by contriving self-made instruments....
"Often I would keep myself awake that I might listen to their animating
remarks, for it made _me so happy to see them so happy_. But generally
their conversation would branch out on philosophical subjects, when my
brother William and my father often argued with such warmth that my
mother's interference became necessary; when the names Leibnitz, Newton,
and Euler sounded rather too loud for the repose of her little ones, who
ought to be in school by seven in the morning. But it seems that on the
brothers retiring to their own room, where they shared the same bed, my
brother William had still a great deal to say; and frequently it
happened that when he stopped for an assent or reply, he found his
hearer was gone to sleep, and I suppose it was not till then that he
bethought himself to do the same.
"The recollection of these happy scenes confirms me in the belief, that
had my brother William not then been interrupted in his philosophical
pursuits, we should have had much earlier proofs of his inventive
genius. My father was a great admirer of astronomy, and had some
knowledge of that science; for I remember his taking me, on a clear
frosty night, into the street, to make me acquainted with several of the
most beautiful constellations, after we had been gazing at a comet which
was then visible. And I well remember with what delight he used to
assist my brother William in his various contrivances in the pursuit of
his philosophical studies, among which was a neatly turned four-inch
globe, upon which the equator and ecliptic were engraved by my
brother."
When William was seventeen, the guards went to England for a year, and
on their return home he brought one precious memento of the country,
Locke "On the Human Understanding." Such a boy would not remain in the
foot guards forever. He was delicate in health, so that his parents
removed him from the army.
At nineteen, he determined to try his fortune in England. He said
good-by to the culture-loving and warm-hearted father, to the poor
mother who knew "no other wants than good linen and clothing," and
started out to make his way in the world. For three years nothing is
known of him, save that he passed through many hardships. He played in
military bands whenever and wherever he could find a situation, or at
concerts, and led probably a cramped and obscure life.
There was little prospect then that he would become, as Prof. Edward S.
Holden says in his admirable life, "the greatest of practical
astronomers, and one of the world's most profound philosophers." What
the poor German youth thought and felt in those years of trial, we do
not know. He had one resource in his loneliness, the reading of useful
books.
After about three years, a fortuitous circumstance occurred. It proved
"fortuitous" only because young Herschel had studied music faithfully,
and had made himself ready to fill a fine position, if, poor and without
influence, such a position could be obtained.
As Dr. Miller, a noted organist, "was dining at Pontefract with the
officers of the Durham militia, one of them, knowing his love of music,
told him they had a young German in their band, as a performer on the
oboe, who was also an excellent performer on the violin. The officer
added that if Miller would come into another room, this German should
entertain him with a solo. The invitation was gladly accepted, and
Miller heard a solo of Giardini's executed in a manner that surprised
him.
"He afterwards took an opportunity of having some private conversation
with the young musician, and asked him whether he had engaged himself
for any long period to the Durham militia. The answer was, 'Only from
month to month.'
"'Leave them, then,' said the organist, 'and come and live with me. I am
a single man, and think we shall be happy together; and doubtless your
merit will soon entitle you to a more eligible situation.'
"The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made, and the reader may
imagine with what satisfaction Dr. Miller must have remembered this act
of generous feeling, when he heard that this young German was Herschel,
the astronomer. 'My humble mansion,' says Miller, 'consisted at that
time but of two rooms. However, poor as I was, my cottage contained a
library of well chosen books.'
"He took an early opportunity of introducing his new friend at Mr.
Cropley's concerts. The first violin was resigned to him, 'and never,'
says the organist, 'had I heard the concertos of Corelli, Geminiani, and
Avison, or the overtures of Handel, performed more chastely, or more
according to the original intention of the composers, than by Mr.
Herschel.'
"'I soon lost my companion; his fame was presently spread abroad; he had
the offer of pupils, and was solicited to lead the public concerts both
at Wakefield and Halifax. A new organ for the parish church of Halifax
was built about this time, and Herschel was one of the seven candidates
for the organist's place. They drew lots how they were to perform in
succession. Herschel drew the third; the second fell to Dr. Wainwright,
of Manchester, whose finger was so rapid that old Snetzler, the
organ-builder, ran about the church exclaiming, "_He run over te keys
like one cat; he will not give my piphes room for to shpeak_."
"'During Mr. Wainwright's performance,' says Miller, 'I was standing in
the middle aisle with Herschel. "What chance have you," said I, "to
follow this man?" He replied, "I don't know, I am sure fingers will not
do." On which he ascended the organ loft, and produced from the organ so
uncommon a fulness, such a volume of slow, solemn harmony, that I could
by no means account for the effect. After this short _extempore_
effusion, he finished with the Old Hundredth psalm-tune, which he played
better than his opponent.
"'"_Ay, ay,_" cried old Snetzler, "_tish is very goot, very goot inteet.
I will hef tish man, for he gives my piphes room for to shpeak._" Having
afterwards asked Mr. Herschel by what means, in the beginning of his
performance, he produced so uncommon an effect, he replied, "I told you
fingers would not do!" and, producing two pieces of lead from his
waistcoat pocket, "One of these," said he, "I placed on the lowest
key of the organ, and the other upon the octave above; thus, by
accommodating the harmony, I produced the effect of four hands, instead
of two."'"
Herschel was the successful candidate among the seven. He was now
twenty-seven years old. Only once do we learn of his going home to
Germany, and that in the year previous. Of this visit, Caroline, now
grown to fourteen, says, "Of the joys and pleasures which all felt at
this long-wished-for meeting with my, let me say my _dearest_ brother,
but a small portion could fall to my share; for with my constant
attendance at church and school, besides the time I was employed in
doing the drudgery of the scullery, it was but seldom I could make one
in the group when the family were assembled together.
"In the first week, some of the orchestra were invited to a concert, at
which some of my brother William's compositions--overtures, etc.--and
some of my eldest brother, Jacob's, were performed, to the great delight
of my dear father, who hoped and expected that they would be turned to
some profit by publishing them, but there was no printer who bid high
enough."
After a year at Halifax, Herschel obtained a position as organist at the
Octagon Chapel in Bath, a fashionable city of England. This was another
and higher step on the road to fame. He now gave nearly forty lessons a
week to pupils. He composed music, and wrote anthems, chants, and
psalm-tunes for the cathedral choir where he played. He became so
popular from his real ability, coupled with pleasing manners, that he
was occupied in teaching from fourteen to sixteen hours daily.
But he did more than this. As his hopes brightened, he determined to
devote every minute to the pursuit of knowledge, in which he found his
greatest happiness. He studied Greek and Italian. He would _unbend his
mind_, after he retired, with Maclaurin's "Fluxions," or Robert Smith's
"Complete System of Optics," and Lalande's Astronomy.
What if he had devoted this time to ease or amusement! Would he have
become learned or distinguished? Every young man and woman is obliged to
decide the matter for himself and herself. We cannot idle away life and
be great.
[Illustration: CAROLINE HERSCHEL.]
In 1767, the fond father, Isaac, died of paralysis. Caroline, who loved
him tenderly, was desolate. He had taught her the violin when the
prosaic mother "was either in good humor, or out of the way." It is
quite possible that music, like inventions, did not bring an adequate
support for ten children, and that the practical mother wished her
daughter to learn something whereby she could earn a living. She
thereupon sent her two or three months to a seamstress to be taught to
make household linen. After a time a delightful proposition came from
the organist at Bath. He would take her to England, and see if she
"could not become a useful singer for his winter concerts and
oratorios." If she did not succeed, after two years, he would carry her
back to Germany.
In 1772, William came to Hanover and took his sister to Bath, at 7 New
Kings Street. She was now twenty-two; an untutored girl, with a bright,
eager mind, and a heart that went out to her brother in the most rapt
devotion. History does not show a more complete, single-hearted,
subservient affection, nor a sadder picture of a woman's sorrow in later
years, in consequence of it.
At once Caroline began her work of voice culture, lessons in arithmetic,
English, and in keeping accounts, from her brother, and in managing the
house. Alexander, now in England, boarded with William, and he and
Caroline occupied the attic. The first three winter months were lonely,
as she saw little of William.
"The time," she says, "when I could hope to receive a little more of my
brother's instruction and attention was now drawing near; for after
Easter, Bath becomes very empty, only a few of his scholars, whose
families were residents in the neighborhood, remaining. But I was
greatly disappointed, for, in consequence of the harassing and
fatiguing life he had led during the winter months, he used to retire to
bed with a basin of milk or glass of water, and Smith's Harmonics and
Optics, Ferguson's Astronomy, etc., and so went to sleep buried under
his favorite authors; and his first thoughts on rising were how to
obtain the instruments for viewing those objects himself of which he had
been reading.
"There being in one of the shops a two-and-a-half-foot Gregorian
telescope to be let, it was for some time taken in requisition, and
served not only for viewing the heavens, but for making experiments on
its construction.... It soon appeared that my brother was not contented
with knowing what former observers had seen, for he began to contrive a
telescope eighteen or twenty feet long.... I was much hindered in my
musical practice by my help being continually wanted in the execution of
the various contrivances, and I had to amuse myself with making the tube
of pasteboard for the glasses, which were to arrive from London, for at
that time no optician had settled at Bath. But when all was finished, no
one besides my brother could get a glimpse of Jupiter or Saturn, for the
great length of the tube would not allow it to be kept in a straight
line. This difficulty, however, was soon removed by substituting tin
tubes."
Herschel had attempted to buy a telescope, but found the price far
beyond his means. But he was not discouraged. Caroline soon saw "almost
every room turned into a work-shop. A cabinet-maker making a tube and
stands of all descriptions in a handsomely furnished drawing-room;" this
could be so occupied when the music scholars had left Bath in their
vacation; "Alex putting up a huge turning machine in a bedroom, for
turning patterns, grinding glasses, and turning eye-pieces, etc."
The longed-for time to see more of her brother never came to Caroline,
except as she finally grew into his life-work, and became his second
self.
He had one unalterable purpose, the study of the construction of the
heavens. Nothing ever drew him from it. Nothing ever could draw him. And
herein lay one of the elements of his great power. As an English writer
has well said: "So gentle and patient a follower of science under
difficulties scarcely occurs in the whole circle of biography." Yes, he
was "gentle and patient," but with an untiring and never ending
perseverance. Too poor to buy telescopes, he made them. With no time to
read books during the day, he took the hours from sleep. With little
opportunity for education, he educated himself.
In 1774, the music teacher made for himself a five-and-one-half-foot
Gregorian telescope; and a year later, a Newtonian, with a
four-and-a-half-inch aperture, which magnified two hundred and
twenty-two times. The making of these instruments showed great
mechanical skill and accurate knowledge. He began now to study the
heavens in earnest, but the teaching must go on to provide daily bread.
He directed an orchestra of nearly one hundred pieces, and Caroline
copied the scores and vocal parts. So absorbed was he in his
astronomical work, however, that at the theatre, between the acts, he
would run from the harpsichord to look at the stars. This boyish
eagerness and naturalness he kept through life.
He soon made a seven-foot reflector, then a ten-foot reflector. The
mirrors for these telescopes were all made by hand, machines for the
purpose not being invented till ten or more years later. Alexander, with
his mechanical skill, assisted, and Caroline was always busy at the
work. She says, "My time was taken up with copying music and practising,
besides attendance on my brother when polishing; since, by way of
keeping him alive, I was constantly obliged to feed him, by putting his
victuals by bits into his mouth. This was once the case, when, in order
to finish a seven-foot mirror, he had not taken his hands from it for
sixteen hours together. In general he was never unemployed at meals, but
was always at those times contriving or making drawings of whatever came
in his mind. Generally I was obliged to read to him while he was at the
turning-lathe, or polishing mirrors, 'Don Quixote,' 'Arabian Nights'
Entertainment,' the novels of Sterne, Fielding, etc.; serving tea and
supper without interrupting the work with which he was engaged."...
So busy that he could not find time to eat or sleep! Rare devotion of a
rare mind! He now began to study every star of the first, second, third,
and fourth magnitudes in the sky. He carefully observed the moon, and
measured the height of about one hundred of her mountains. Her extinct
volcanoes, and her unpeopled solitudes, without clouds or air, were an
impressive study.
He was now forty years old,--not young to begin the study of a new and
illimitable science, but not too old, for one is never too old to begin
a great or a noble work.
Through Dr. William Watson, Fellow of the Royal Society, who
happened--if anything ever _happens_ in this world--to see Herschel at
his telescope, he became a member of the Philosophical Society of Bath,
and soon in 1780 sent two papers to the Royal Society, the one on the
periodical star in _Collo Ceti_, and the other on the mountains of the
moon, which were read by Dr. William Watson, Jr.
When he was forty-three, he says, "I began to construct a thirty-foot
aerial reflector, and, having made a stand for it, I cast the mirror
thirty-six inches in diameter. This was cracked in cooling. I cast it a
second time, and the furnace I had built in my house broke." But he
persevered. This same year, 1781, after he had lived in Bath nine years,
on the night of Tuesday, March 13, having removed to a larger house, 19
New King Street, he says, "In examining the small stars in the
neighborhood of _H. Geminorum_ I perceived one that appeared visibly
larger than the rest; being struck with its uncommon appearance, I
compared it to _H. Geminorum_ and the small star in the quarter between
Auriga and Gemini, and, finding it so much larger than either of them, I
suspected it to be a comet."
The orbit of this "comet" was computed and its distance from the sun
found to be eighteen hundred million miles! The world soon awoke to the
fact that a new planet had been found, the greatest astronomical
discovery since Galileo invented the telescope, and the unknown musician
at Bath had become famous! So little was Herschel known at this time,
that one journal called him Mersthel, another Herthel, and still another
Hermstel.
In December of the same year, 1781, Herschel was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society and received the Copley gold medal. He was no longer the
poor German youth playing the oboe among the guards; he was the renowned
discoverer. He called the planet Georgium Sidus, in honor of his
sovereign, George III., but it was decided later to call it Uranus, from
Urania the muse of astronomy.
Herschel went eagerly on with his work. Fame did not change his simple
nature. The truly great are never ostentatious. He erected in his garden
a stand for his twenty-foot telescope, and perfected his mirrors.
"Though at times," says Caroline, "much harassed with business, the
mirror for the thirty-foot reflector was never out of his mind, and if
a minute could but be spared in going from one scholar to another, or
giving one the slip, he called at home to see how the men went on with
the furnace, which was built in a room below, even with the garden."
The next year, 1782, Herschel went to London, and met with a gracious
reception from George III. He wrote back to his devoted sister: "Dear
Lina: All my papers are printing, with the postscript and all, and are
allowed to be very valuable. You see, Lina, I tell you all these things.
You know vanity is not my foible, therefore I need not fear your
censure. Farewell.
"I am your affectionate brother,
"WM. HERSCHEL."
Again he wrote,--
"I pass my time between Greenwich and London, agreeably enough, but am
rather at a loss for work that I like. Company is not always pleasing,
and I would much rather be polishing a speculum.... I am introduced to
the best company. To-morrow I dine at Lord Palmerston's, next day with
Sir Joseph Banks, etc., etc. Among opticians and astronomers nothing now
is talked of but _what they call_ my great discoveries. Alas! this shows
how far they are behind, when such trifles as I have seen and done are
called _great_. Let me but get at it again! I will make such telescopes,
and see such things--that is, I will endeavor to do so."
And this great ambition nerved him for action, continued and laborious,
as long as he lived. He was never satisfied; always achieving. Little
can be expected from those who are easily satisfied.
George III. wisely appointed Herschel Royal Astronomer, though with the
too small salary of one thousand dollars yearly. He came back to Bath
only to perform the last musical duty on Whit Sunday, 1782, the anthem
for the day being his own composition, and to say good-by to his pupils.
He moved to Datchet in 1782, and set up his twenty-foot telescope. In
1783 he had made three reviews of the heavens. In 1784 he made a fourth
review with his twenty-foot telescope. Caroline says: "My brother began
his sweeps when the instrument was yet in a very unfinished state, and
my feelings were not very comfortable when every moment I was alarmed by
a crash or a fall, knowing him to be elevated fifteen feet or more on a
temporary crossbeam, instead of a safe gallery. The ladders had not even
their braces at the bottom; and one night, in a very high wind, he had
hardly touched the ground before the whole apparatus came down.... I
could give a pretty long list of accidents which were near proving fatal
to my brother as well as myself."
A gentleman who visited him at Datchet wrote: "The thermometer in the
garden stood at 13 deg. Fahrenheit; but in spite of this, Herschel observes
the whole night through, except that he stops every three or four hours
and goes in the room for a few moments. For some years Herschel has
observed the heavens every hour when the weather is clear, and this
always in the open air, because he says that the telescope only performs
well when it is at the same temperature as the air. He protects himself
against the weather by putting on more clothing. He has an excellent
constitution, and thinks about nothing else in the world but the
celestial bodies."
But, occupied as Herschel was about "celestial bodies," he yet found
time to think about earthly things, for we find him at forty-five, May
8, 1783, marrying Mary, the wealthy widow of John Pitt, Esq., a lady of
much intelligence and amiability.
The sad feature of the new relationship was the misery it brought to
Caroline. Her whole life had centred in William. For eleven years she
had devoted every moment, every wish, every thought to him. She had
watched all night among the stars with him, month after month, and year
after year, in cold and in heat, and superintended his home by day. His
every desire was her law. She loved no other, and he was her all.
Perhaps she ought to have known that another might come into his life,
but she trusted blindly, and did not question the future.
When the wife came into the home, Caroline went out of it forever. For
more than twenty years she lived in lodgings, always "cheerless and
solitary," her only happiness found in coming day by day to help her
brother in his great work. Sometimes, when the wife was absent, Caroline
came back for a few days and lived over the old unalloyed life, and then
went back to her lonely lodgings.
For ten years following this marriage, she probably told her heart-aches
in her journal; but before her death she destroyed the record of these
years, that the feelings of those who were alive might not be pained. In
later days she became more reconciled to Lady Herschel, as "a dear
sister, for as such I now know you," and idolized their only son, the
renowned Sir John Herschel, born nine years after their marriage.
In 1785, Herschel began to construct his great forty-foot telescope, and
the next year removed to Slough, not far from Windsor. "In the whole of
the apparatus," he said, "none but common workmen were employed, for I
made drawings of every part of it, by which it was easy to execute the
work, as I constantly inspected and directed every person's labor;
though sometimes there were not less than forty different workmen
employed at the same time. While the stand of the telescope was
preparing, I also began the construction of the great mirror, of which I
inspected the casting, grinding, and polishing; and the work was in this
manner carried on with no other interruption than that occasioned by the
removal of all the apparatus and materials from where I then lived, to
my present situation at Slough." He had his first view through the
telescope February 19, 1787. George III. gave twenty thousand dollars
for the building of this instrument, and one thousand dollars yearly for
its maintenance.
A half-century afterwards, the woodwork having become decayed, it was
taken down, the great tube laid horizontally, and, after Sir John
Herschel and his family had passed through it, a poem written by Sir
John having been read, it was sealed January 1, 1840, and placed on
piers.
With this great telescope, Herschel discovered two satellites of Saturn,
Mimas and Enceladus; one on August 27, 1789, and the other on September
17 of the same year. Two years before this, January 11, 1787, he
discovered two satellites of Uranus, Oberon and Titania. Sixty years
afterwards, Mr. Lassell, of England, discovered the remaining two
satellites of Uranus, called Ariel and Umbriel.
From this time his work went forward grandly. He had already completed
more than two hundred seven-foot, one hundred and fifty ten-foot, and
eighty twenty-foot mirrors. For many of the telescopes sent abroad he
made no stands, but provided the drawings. He wrote much about Saturn
and its rings, and showed that its most distant satellite, Japetus,
turns once on its axis in each revolution about its primary, as our moon
does about the earth.
He studied carefully the nature of the sun, its probable gaseous
surface, and its spots, and was the first to suspect their periodic
character. What would Herschel have said to the wonderful photographic
representations of these spots given by Professor Langley, in his New
Astronomy; spots which are one billion square miles in size; more than
five times the surface of the land and water on the earth? He saw, as
astronomers to-day see, that heat cannot be produced without expenditure
of force; and that the sun is probably cooling, even though scarcely
perceptibly for ages to come. He saw what science now generally
concedes, the rise and fall of the solar system; its gradual fitness for
the coming of man, through almost countless centuries; and its final
unfitness, when his generations shall have gone forever.
He wrote much about the Milky Way, believing at first that it could be
completely resolved into stars, about eighteen millions of them; but
later he changed his theory, having found so much nebulous matter--in a
state of condensation as though new worlds were forming, possibly to be
the homes of some new race, or of man in the ages to come.
His study of the variable stars attracted wide attention. He found that
the star _Mira Ceti_ was for several months invisible to the naked eye;
then it grew brighter and brighter, and finally disappeared for months,
as before. He saw that other stars are periodic, and came to the
conclusion that this is occasioned by the rotation of the star upon its
axis, by which different parts of its surface are presented to us
periodically.
He made a catalogue of double stars, and found by laborious calculations
that such stars have a common centre of gravity; that one sun revolves
about another. He found that our solar system has a motion of its own; a
grand orbit round some as yet unknown centre, and that other systems
have a like motion.
What this centre may be, whether a great sun like Sirius, one hundred
times larger than ours, with unknown powers and unknown uses, is of
course only conjecture.
Herschel gave much attention to nebulae, discovering and describing
twenty-five hundred new nebulae and clusters. He gave his life to the
study of the construction of the heavens. Concerning his statement of
the general construction, Professor Holden, himself a brilliant
astronomer, says: "It is the groundwork upon which we have still to
build.... As a scientific conception it is perhaps the grandest that has
ever entered into the human mind. As a study of the height to which the
efforts of one man may go, it is almost without a parallel.... As a
practical astronomer he remains without an equal. In profound philosophy
he has few superiors. By a kindly chance he can be claimed as the
citizen of no one country. In very truth his is one of the few names
which belong to the whole world."
The distinguished man, though unassuming and gentle in manner, must have
had a realizing sense of the greatness of his work, for he said, "I
have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I
have observed stars of which the light takes _two millions_ of years to
travel to this globe."
He gave much study to light and heat. So boundless was his knowledge
believed to be, that a farmer called one day to ask the proper time for
cutting his grass.
"Look at that field," said the scientist, "and when I tell you it is
mine, I think you will not need another proof to convince you that I am
no more weatherwise than yourself or the rest of my neighbors."
He worked earnestly till he was seventy-six, always depending upon his
faithful and inseparable Caroline for aid in his labors. He made a
telescope for her, with which she swept the heavens for comets, finding
eight, five of which she discovered for the first time.
At seventy-six his health began to fail. He had worked incessantly from
his struggling boyhood, but brain work does not wear us out; care and
anxiety bring the marks of age upon us. He now took little journeys away
from Slough for change of scene and air, while Caroline stayed at home
to copy his papers for the Royal Society, and to arrange his
manuscripts. In 1816, he was made a knight of the Royal Hanoverian
Guelphic Order, by the Prince Regent, and in 1821 was the first
president of the Royal Astronomical Society, his son being its first
foreign secretary.
In February, 1818, Caroline spent twelve precious days with her brother,
"not in idleness," she says, "but in sorrow and sadness. He is not only
unwell, but low in spirits." Later he went to Bath with Lady Herschel.
"The last moments before he stepped into the carriage," says the loving
Caroline, "were spent in walking with me through his library and
workrooms, pointing with anxious looks to every shelf and drawer,
desiring me to examine all and to make memorandums of them as well as I
could. He was hardly able to support himself, and his spirits were so
low, that I found difficulty in commanding my voice so far as to give
him the assurance he should find on his return that my time had not been
misspent.
"When I was left alone I found that I had no easy task to perform, for
there were packets of writings to be examined which had not been looked
at for the last forty years. But I did not pass a single day without
working in the library as long as I could read a letter without
candle-light, and taking with me papers to copy, etc., which employed me
for the _best part of the night_, and thus I was enabled to give my
brother a clear account of what had been done at his return."
On the 4th of July, 1819, Herschel sent a note to his dear co-worker.
"Lina,--There is a great comet. I want you to assist me. Come to dine
and spend the day here. If you can come soon after one o'clock we shall
have time to prepare maps and telescopes. I saw its situation last
night,--it has a long tail."
Caroline wrote on this small slip of yellow paper: "I keep this as a
relic! Every line _now_ traced by the hand of my dear brother becomes a
treasure to me."
Every day hereafter she spent the forenoon with Sir William. On the 15th
of August she went as usual and found that he was confined to his room.
"I flew there immediately," she says. "As soon as he saw me, I was sent
to the library to fetch one of his last papers and a plate of the
forty-foot telescope. But for the universe I could not have looked twice
at what I had snatched from the shelf, and when he faintly asked if the
breaking up of the Milky Way was in it, I said 'Yes!' and he looked
content. I cannot help remembering this circumstance, it was the last
time I was sent to the library on such an occasion. That the anxious
care for his papers and workroom never ended but with his life was
proved by his frequent whispered inquiries if they were locked and the
key safe, of which I took care to assure him that they were, and the key
in Lady Herschel's hands.
"After half an hour's vain attempt to support himself, my brother was
obliged to consent to be put to bed, leaving no hope ever to see him
rise again. For ten days and nights we remained in the most
heart-rending situation till the 25th of August, when not one comfort
was left to me but that of retiring to the chamber of death, there to
ruminate without interruption on my isolated situation. Of this last
solace I was robbed on the 7th of September, when the dear remains were
consigned to the grave."
Faithful and devoted watcher over his dead body, to the last! When he
had been buried in the little church at Upton, Windsor, at the age of
eighty-four, honored by all Europe and America, Caroline could live no
longer where remembrance of him made it intolerable.
She went back to Hanover, "a person," she said, sadly, "that has nothing
more to do in this world," to live with her brother Dietrich. She had
come to England, a girl of twenty-two; she went back an elderly woman,
seventy-two. The home in Germany did not prove a happy one, but how
could it without William? She lived simply, not spending half of the
five hundred dollars a year left her by her dead brother.
She had already published "A Catalogue of eight hundred and sixty Stars,
observed by Flamsteed, but not included in the British Catalogue," and
"A General Index of Reference to every Observation of every star in the
above mentioned British Catalogue." She also prepared "The Reduction and
Arrangement, in the form of a Catalogue in Zones, of all the Star
Clusters and Nebulae observed by Sir William Herschel in his Sweeps," "a
work," said Sir David Brewster, "of immense labor; an extraordinary
monument of the unextinguished ardor of a lady of seventy-five in the
cause of abstract science."
For this the Royal Astronomical Society voted her the gold medal, and
gave her the unusual distinction of honorary membership.
Sixteen years after her return to Hanover, Sir John Herschel, her
nephew, who had made his wonderful review of the southern heavens,
discovering as many new nebulae as his father, took his only boy, Willie,
to see her.
She was now eighty-eight. The visit was overwhelming to her affectionate
heart. She watched the child with the most intense delight. Fearing the
results if she knew the time of their departure for England, Sir John,
with mistaken kindness, went away at four o'clock in the morning,
without saying good-by. But the anguish of separation was thereby
rendered greater.
The years went by slowly. On her ninety-sixth birthday the King of
Prussia sent her a gold medal, Alexander von Humboldt writing her a
letter from Berlin to accompany it.
January 14, 1848, at the age of almost ninety-eight, Caroline Herschel
died, and was buried from the same garrison church where nearly a
century before she had been christened. In her coffin was placed, by her
desire, a lock of her brother's hair. Beautiful affection! great
co-workers in their immortal study of unnumbered worlds!
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.]
The great Agassiz, in his eloquent address, in Boston, on the hundredth
anniversary of the birth of Humboldt, said: "All the fundamental facts
of popular education in physical science, beyond the merest elementary
instruction, we owe to him. We are reaping daily in every school
throughout the broad land, where education is the heritage of the
poorest child, the intellectual harvest sown by him.
"There is not a text-book of geography, or a school atlas in the hands
of our children to-day, which does not bear, however blurred and
defaced, the impress of his great mind. But for him our geographies
would be mere enumerations of localities and statistics. He first
suggested the graphic methods of representing natural phenomena which
are now universally adopted. The first geological sections, the first
sections across an entire continent, the first averages of climate
illustrated by lines, were his. Every school-boy is familiar with his
methods now, but he does not know that Humboldt is his teacher...."
Naturally we ask how such a man rose to fame, and what incited him to
stand among the few intellectual leaders of the world.
Frederick William Henry _Alexander_ von Humboldt was born September 14,
1769, in Berlin, the same year as Baron Cuvier. Unlike Cuvier, he came
into a home of wealth and culture. His father was a Prussian officer and
chamberlain to the king. His mother, the widow of Baron von Hollwede,
married Major von Humboldt when he was forty-six years old, bringing
into the family much landed property. Three children were born to them,
a daughter who died in infancy, and the famous brothers, William and
Alexander, the former two years older than the latter.
The father, an exceedingly amiable and benevolent man, died when
Alexander was but ten years old. The mother, left with her two sons, was
wise enough to select superior tutors for them, deeming a good education
their best preparation for a useful life.
Much of their time was spent at their summer home at Tegel, on the banks
of the Havel, about eight miles from Berlin. In 1778 Goethe went there
for a visit, and the two Humboldt lads, nine and eleven years of age,
played and talked with the leading mind of Germany.
The children were not altogether happy there, as Alexander wrote a
friend years afterward. "Vine-clad hills which here we call mountains,
extensive plantations of foreign trees, the meadows surrounding the
house, and lovely views of the lake with its picturesque banks awaiting
the beholder at every turn, render this place undoubtedly one of the
most attractive residences in the neighborhood. If, in addition, you
picture to yourself the high degree of luxury and taste that reigns in
our home, you will indeed be surprised when I tell you that I never
visit this place without a certain feeling of melancholy.... I passed
most of that unhappy time (my youthful days) here at Tegel, among people
who loved me, and showed me kindness, but with whom I had not the least
sympathy, where I was subjected to a thousand restraints and much
self-imposed solitude, and where I was often placed in circumstances
that obliged me to maintain a close reserve, and to make continual
self-sacrifices.
"Now that I am my own master, and living here without restraint, I am
unable to yield myself to the charms of which nature is here so
prodigal, because I am met at every turn by painful recollections of my
childhood, which even the inanimate objects around me are continually
awakening. Sad as such recollections are, however, they are interesting
from the thought that it was just my residence here which exercised so
powerful an influence in the formation of my character and the direction
of my tastes to the study of nature."
Much which seems trying and unsatisfactory is, after all, our best
discipline for life. The strongest and noblest characters are not
developed in the perpetual sunshine of happiness. Rain and sun are alike
necessary for growth.
Alexander early showed great fondness for natural history, collecting
flowers, plants, butterflies, shells, and stones, so that he was called
the "Little Apothecary." He likewise found great delight in drawing. He
says of himself: "Until I reached the age of sixteen, I showed little
inclination for scientific pursuits. I was of a restless disposition,
and wished to be a soldier. This choice was displeasing to my family,
who were desirous that I should devote myself to the study of finance,
so that I had no opportunity of attending a course of botany or
chemistry; I am self-taught in almost all the sciences with which I am
now so occupied, and I acquired them comparatively late in life. Of the
science of botany I never so much as heard till I formed the
acquaintance in 1788 of Herr Willdenow, a youth of my own age, who had
just been publishing a Flora of Berlin. His gentle and amiable character
stimulated the interest I felt in his pursuits. I never received any
lessons professedly, but I used to bring him the specimens I collected,
and he gave me their classifications. I became passionately devoted to
botany, and took especial interest in the study of cryptogamia. The
sight of exotic plants, even when only as dried specimens in an
herbarium, fired my imagination with the pleasure that would be derived
from the view of a tropical vegetation in southern lands."
At sixteen, then, the boy did not know for what he was best fitted in
life. How important for young men and women to study themselves, and
know their own tastes and capacities! At nineteen he had never heard of
botany, and yet he became one of the most distinguished of botanists!
The boy also longed to go to sea, not an unusual desire in restless and
ambitious natures. But he was frail in body, and gave little evidence
that he would ever be able to accomplish any of the things for which he
longed.
At nineteen he was ready for college, and with his brother entered at
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. He gave his time largely to finance and political
economy, by his mother's desire, that he might be able to act in some
capacity under the government.
At college, as ever after in life, he found one devoted friend, who
became his inseparable companion. At Frankfort, it was Wegener, a young
theologian, with a warm heart, and great zeal for knowledge. Nor did
this friendship cease when he went to Goettingen some months later, for
better opportunities in the study of science. He wrote to Wegener: "If
God only spare us, nothing can break the bond between two friends who
are to each other more than brothers.... My fervent love and sincere
friendship for you are as imperishable as the soul which gives them
birth.... How happy, how inexpressibly happy should I be, if I had a
friend like you by my side!... I doubt not that among eight hundred men
there must be some with whom I could form a friendship, but how long is
it often before we find each other out! Were not you and I acquainted
for three months before we discovered how completely we were made one
for the other? To be without a friend, what an existence! And where can
I hope to find a friend whom I could place by your side in my
affections!"
These words seem like those of a lover, or an affectionate woman, but
they come from a mind that now, as in after years, towered like a giant
oak in the trees of a forest. Beautiful union of brain and heart! Such
only makes an ideal character.
Humboldt had already met Willdenow, and begun to love botany. Again he
writes to Wegener: "I have just come in from a solitary walk in the
Thiergarten,"--he was for a short time in Berlin,--"where I have been
seeking for mosses, lichens, and fungi, which are just now in
perfection. How sad to wander about alone! And yet there is something
attractive in this solitude, when occupied with nature.... I am
collecting materials for a work on the various properties of plants,
medicinal properties excepted; it is a work requiring such great
research, and such a profound knowledge of botany, as to be far beyond
my unassisted powers, and I am therefore endeavoring to enlist the
cooeperation of several of my friends.... Pray do not imagine that I am
going to appear as an author forthwith; I do not intend that shall
happen for the next ten years, and by that time I trust I shall have
discovered something startlingly new and important."
Goettingen was now at the height of its glory. Humboldt attended courses
of lectures on archaeology, on trade and commerce, on light, heat, and
electricity, on agriculture, and on ancient tragic poets, under Heyne,
of whom he said, "Heyne is undoubtedly the man to whom this century is
the most deeply indebted; to him we owe the spread of religious
enlightenment, by means of the education and training he has instituted
for young village school-masters; to him is due the introduction of a
more liberal tone of thought, the establishment of a literary
archaeology, and the first association of the principles of aesthetics
with the study of philology."
Humboldt was also fond of Greek. He said, "The more I know of the Greek
language, the more am I confirmed in my preconceived opinion, that it is
the true foundation for all the higher branches of learning."
With some friends, he soon founded the Philosophical Society, which,
with the admirable libraries and museums at hand, became of great
assistance to the students.
The next year, 1790, he had become so interested in science, that he
wrote Wegener: "I was away from Goettingen for two months, spending the
vacation in making a scientific tour with a Herr van Genns, a Dutchman
with whom I became acquainted through his writings on botanical
subjects.... Amid the numberless distractions of the journey, which was
made sometimes on foot and sometimes by carriage, and with the incessant
occupation of packing up minerals and plants, I was not very well able
to write to you." The result of this tour was a pamphlet, "Mineralogical
Observations on some Basalts of the Rhine." His next works were two
small treatises, "The Aqueous Origin of Basalt," and "The Metallic Seams
in the Basalt at Unkel." And this youth of twenty-one was self-taught
both in mineralogy and geology!
The wonder was not so great, perhaps, that a young man of his age should
have written these sketches, as that, being wealthy and of the best
social position, the temptations to ease and enjoyment did not draw him
away from such subjects. Poverty may not be a delight, but the larger
part of the world's work has been done under its stimulus. Wealth should
be an incentive, because it gives leisure for careful study, but this is
not always the case.
At Goettingen, Humboldt found a friend among the eight hundred. At the
house of Heyne he made the acquaintance of George Foster, Heyne's
son-in-law, a man who exerted a remarkable and lasting influence over
him. Foster was thirty-six; Humboldt, fifteen years his junior. He had
been around the world with Captain Cook in his second voyage, and had
published an able book upon the subject. He was skilled in chemistry,
philosophy, literature, and politics, understood Latin, Greek, French,
English, Dutch, and Italian, and was somewhat conversant with the
Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish languages.
The influence of such a man can well be imagined. He became a guiding
star to the young Goettingen student. If we could but estimate the value
of right friendships in life! We flatter ourselves that we are too
strong to be influenced, and yet we are greatly influenced for good or
for evil by those with whom we associate. Humboldt always chose
intellectual friends, and the natural result followed.
In the spring of 1790, he left Goettingen, and, with Foster and Van
Genns, took a journey to the Lower Rhine, Holland, Belgium, England, and
France, studying docks, mines, botanic gardens, manufactures, and
churches, and visiting literary celebrities. Still the new friends did
not take the place of the old, for he writes to Wegener: "I beseech you,
dearest Wegener, by all the affection which you know I bear you, never
to forget our brotherly love and friendship. You are infinitely more to
me than I can ever be to you. I have now seen the most celebrated places
in Germany, Holland, and England--but, believe me, I have in seeing them
never been so happy as while sitting in Steinbart's arm-chair."
The influence of this journey was never lost. Sixty-eight years
afterward, Humboldt said: "For the space of thirty years I have never
known leisure but of an evening, and the half-century that I have spent
in this ceaseless activity has been occupied in telling myself and
others how much I owe my teacher and friend George Foster in the
generalization of my views on nature, and in the strengthening and
development of that which had already dawned in me, before those happy
days of intimate friendship."
In the latter part of 1790, Humboldt went to Hamburg, to enter the
School of Commerce. He wished to study political economy further, and to
learn practical book-keeping. He wrote to a friend: "I am contented with
my mode of life at Hamburg, but not happy, less happy even than at
Goettingen, where the monotony of my existence was relieved by the
society of one or two friends and the vicinity of some moss-grown
mountains. I am, however, always contented when I feel that I am
accomplishing the purpose I have in view.... My leisure hours are
occupied with geology and botany.... In addition, I have begun to learn
Danish and Swedish."
To Wegener he writes: "I have made considerable progress in general
information, and I am beginning to be somewhat more satisfied with my
attainments. I worked very hard at Goettingen, but all I have learned
makes me feel only the more keenly how much remains still to know. My
health suffered severely, but improved somewhat during my journey with
Foster; yet even here I continue so closely occupied that I find it
difficult to spare myself. There is an eager impulse within me, which
often carries me, I fear, beyond the bounds of reason; and yet such
impetuosity is always necessary to insure success."
The "eager impulse" was a sure indication of something to be
accomplished by and by. Success does not come with half-hearted effort;
it comes only through a force and persistence that will allow no
barriers between us and the goal.
At Easter, 1791, Humboldt left Hamburg and hastened to the famous School
of Mines at Freiberg, to study under the celebrated Werner. Here, as
ever, he attached one ardent friend to himself, Freiesleben, a student
in geology. Here every moment was occupied. He studied the works of the
French chemists; Guyton de Moreau, Fourcroy, Lavoisier, and Berthollet.
He was daily in the mines, from six o'clock till twelve. He crowded six
lectures into each afternoon. He made a study of the vegetation of that
lower world, from which the sunlight is ever excluded, and the results
were used later in his comprehensive work, "Flora Subterranea
Fribergensis." He wrote articles for several scientific journals. A busy
life, indeed, for the young man of twenty-two!
His friend Freiesleben says of Humboldt at this time:--
"The salient points of his attractive character lay in his imperturbable
good-nature, his benevolence and charity, his remarkable and _unselfish
amiability_, his susceptibility of friendship and appreciation of
nature; simplicity, candor, and the absence of all pretension
characterized his whole being; he possessed conversational powers that
made him always lively and entertaining, together with a degree of wit
and humor that led him sometimes to waggishness. It was these admirable
qualities which in later years enabled him to soften and attach to
himself the untutored savages, among whom he dwelt for months at a time,
which obtained for him in the civilized world admiration and sympathy
wherever he went, and which gained for him, while a mere student, the
esteem and devotion of all classes at Freiberg.
"He was kindly disposed towards every one, and knew how to make himself
useful and entertaining in every circle of society; and it was only
against every species of inhumanity and coarseness, against every kind
of insolence, injustice, or cruelty, that he ever manifested either
scorn or indignation."
How the world loves "unselfish amiability;" a person who goes through
life thinking for others, not irritable, not supersensitive, not
censorious!
On Humboldt's return to Berlin in 1792, he was at once made "Assessor in
the Administrative Department of Mines and Smelting Works," a position
for which he had previously applied. As a rule, places do not seek
persons, however brilliant; they must seek places.
This was a fine opening for a young man, not yet twenty-three. He went
to work with unbounded energy. He investigated the general form of
mountains, collected information as to former methods of working the
mines, by having three chests of mining documents, belonging to the
sixteenth century, brought to him for careful study, and made a report
on the salt, alum, and vitriol works, and on the porcelain manufactory.
The government authorities were so pleased with his thorough report that
he was appointed superintendent of mines in the two Franconian duchies.
He wrote to Freiesleben: "I am quite intoxicated with joy.... Do not
feel anxious about my health; I shall take care not to over-exert
myself, and after the first the work will not be heavy. I cannot
conclude without acknowledging that it is again to you that I am
indebted for this happiness; indeed I feel it only too keenly. What
knowledge have I, dear Freiesleben, that has not been taught me by
you!... How sweet is the thought to me that it is to you that I owe all
this; it seems as if it bound me closer to you, as if I carried
something about me that had been planted within me and cultivated by
yourself...."
Thus all through life was the appreciative, warm-hearted man glad to
show his gratitude for the stimulus of intellectual friends.
Who does not love to be appreciated! How many of us wait to say kind
things to our friends until death makes it impossible!
Again he wrote: "I possess a certain amount of vanity, and am willing to
confess it; but I know the power of my own will, and I feel that
whatever I set myself to do I shall do well."
While so earnestly engaged in study, Humboldt, with his benevolent
heart, could not see the children of the miners grow up in ignorance.
He therefore opened free schools for them, and paid the teachers from
his own purse. Not many young men at twenty-four would have thought of
so admirable a plan.
Meantime he was experiencing the first keen joy of fame. The Elector of
Saxony had sent the author of "Flora Fribergensis" a gold medal. The
Swedish botanist Vahl had named a magnificent species of an East Indian
laurel after him, the _laurifolia Humboldtia_. It had paid to be a
student; to be led by the "eager impulse" within him.
The next year he wrote to Freiesleben:--
"You are aware that I am quite mad enough to be engaged upon three books
at once.... I have discovered several new lichens. I have also been
occupied upon the history of the weaving of the ancients.... My head is
quite distracted with all I have to attend to--mining, banking,
manufacturing, and organizing; ... the mines, however, are
prospering.... I am promoted to be counsellor of mines at Berlin, with a
salary, probably, of fifteen hundred thalers (here I have four hundred),
and, after remaining there a few months, I shall most likely be
appointed director of mines, either in Westphalia or Rothenburg, and
receive from two thousand to three thousand thalers. I tell you
everything, and open my heart to you."
In 1795, having resigned his position in the service of the state,
because of his desire for travel and scientific work, with two friends,
Freiesleben, and Lieutenant Reinhard von Haften, of Westphalia, he
journeyed to Venice, going through the Tyrol and the Alps into
Switzerland. They visited the mountains around Schaffhausen, Zuerich, and
Berne, and such notable men of science as De Luc, Pictet, and Saussure.
As Freiesleben said, "No subject having any reference to the physical
constitution of the earth, the atmosphere, or any point of natural
history, was allowed to escape his attention."
An especial bond united Humboldt and the highly educated Von Haften,
since between the latter's sister Minette and the young scientist there
existed a devoted affection. This was cherished for ten years, but
Humboldt's life of travel and exposure prevented a union which both
ardently desired. He sacrificed his affections to science, and the
loneliness of his later years proved the unwisdom of his choice.
On his return home, Humboldt set himself earnestly to the writing of two
books: one on geology, the disposition of strata in mountain masses; the
other on the "Excitability of the Nerves and Muscles," describing over
four thousand experiments. His devotion to science was shown by the
painful experiments upon his own body, which brought permanent harm to
his nervous system.
He wrote to a friend: "I applied two blisters to my back, each of the
size of a crown-piece, and covering respectively the trapezius and
deltoid muscles.... When the blisters were cut, and contact made with
zinc and silver, I experienced a sharp pain, which was so severe that
the trapezius muscle swelled considerably, and the quivering was
communicated upwards to the base of the skull and the spinous processes
of the vertebrae."
He also experimented with the noxious gases in mines, inventing lamps
which were the forerunner of Sir Humphrey Davy's. Sometimes he was
deprived of consciousness by the gases and saved only by the timely aid
of friends.
Always longing for foreign travel, he went to Weimar, to make himself
more fully ready for it, especially by the study of anatomy. Here lived
his brother William, who had married a brilliant and intellectual woman,
the intimate friend of the wife of Schiller.
Here Humboldt and Goethe became earnest friends. Goethe says: "During
Humboldt's visit, my time has been usefully and agreeably spent; his
presence has had the effect of arousing from its winter sleep my taste
for natural science." Years afterward Goethe said to Eckermann:
"Alexander von Humboldt has been with me for some hours this morning;
what an extraordinary man he is! Though I have known him for so long, I
am always struck with fresh amazement in his company. He may be said to
be without a rival in extent of information and acquaintance with
existing sciences. He possesses, too, a versatility of genius which I
have never seen equalled. Whatever may be the subject broached, he
seems quite at home in it, and showers upon us treasures in profusion
from his stores of knowledge. He resembles a living fountain, whence
flow many streams, yielding to all comers a quickening and refreshing
draught. He will remain here a few days, and I already feel that I shall
have lived through years in the time."
That Humboldt valued this friendship is shown by the dedication to
Goethe of the first part of his "Travels in America."
The project of foreign travel was long delayed by sickness, war, and
various disappointments. But, in life, obstacles are the common lot of
mortals, and he alone is wise who breasts them cheerfully, patiently,
and persistently. Humboldt said, "It is impossible not to feel the
severity of this disappointment; but it is the part of a man to work,
and not to yield to unavailing regrets."
"Hard! well, and what of that?
Didst fancy life one summer holiday,
With lessons none to learn, and naught but play?
Go, get thee to thy task. Conquer or die!
It must be learned. Learn it then, patiently."
At last, in 1799, when Humboldt was thirty, the long contemplated
journey to South America was about to be realized. He had already
published some astronomical treatises on the determination of latitudes,
trigonometrical measures of the Alpine ranges, etc.; had given lectures
in Paris, before the National Institute, on the nature of nitrous gas,
and the possibility of a more exact analysis of the atmosphere; and had
spent some time in Spain, with the well known botanist Bonpland, in
collecting plants, and making observations in connection with
meteorology, geology, and magnetism. While at Madrid, through Herr von
Forell, a distinguished patron of science, Humboldt was received at
court and obtained permission of the king to visit the Spanish colonies
in America.
At his own expense, the best scientific instruments were procured, and
June 5, 1799, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he and Bonpland, with
their crew and a few others, sailed away, in the corvette Pizarro, for a
five years' journey. He sent tender farewell messages back to "his
family," as he called William's children, and then stifled any feelings
of loneliness or homesickness which he had in his heart, by his favorite
motto, "Man must ever strive after all that is good and great."
June 20, they were at the foot of the Peak of Teneriffe. He wrote to his
brother: "I am quite in a state of ecstasy at finding myself at length
on African soil, surrounded by cocoa-nut palms and bananas.... I
returned last night from an excursion up the peak. What an amazing
scene! What a gratification! We descended some way into the crater,
perhaps farther than any previous scientific traveller.... What a
remarkable spectacle was presented to us at this height of eleven
thousand five hundred feet.... At two in the morning we were already on
our way towards the last cone. The heavens were bright with stars, and
the moon shone with a gentle radiance; but this calm was soon to be
disturbed. The storm raged violently round the summit; we were obliged
to cling fast to the edge of the crater. The wind rushed through the
rifts with a noise like thunder, while a veil of cloud separated us from
the world below."
After a voyage of nineteen days, the ship entered the harbor of Cumana,
on the north coast of South America. Here they enjoyed the new and
strange scenes; the houses built of satin-wood; the copper-colored
Indians outside the town, living in bamboo huts, covered with the leaves
of the cocoa-nut palm; these great trees from fifty to sixty feet high,
with large red bunches of flowers. "Even the crabs," said Humboldt, "are
sky-blue and gold!"
By November they had dried more than sixteen hundred plants, and
described about six hundred new varieties. He had taken observations of
the solar eclipse of October 28, and so severely burnt his face that he
was obliged to remain in bed for two days.
Going to Caracas, they spent two months and a half climbing mountains,
visiting hot springs, and forming an intimate acquaintance with tigers,
crocodiles, monkeys, and boa constrictors. Here they discovered the
singular cow-tree, with dry and tough leaves, but which gives out a
sweet nourishing milk when an incision is made in its stem. "At sunrise
this vegetable spring is the richest: then the negroes and the natives
come from all sides, provided with large vessels to collect the milk,
which turns yellow and thickens on the surface."
In February, 1800, the travellers traced the water system of the
Orinoco, often in the midst of danger. Once, in a severe storm, their
boat was two-thirds full of water. "Our position," says Humboldt, "was
truly appalling; the shore was distant from us more than a mile, where a
number of crocodiles could be discerned lying half out of the water.
Even if we had gained the shore against the fury of the waves and the
voracity of the crocodiles, we should infallibly have either perished
from hunger or been torn in pieces by the tigers, for the woods upon
these shores are so dense and so intertwined with lianas as to be
absolutely impenetrable. The strongest man, axe in hand, could hardly
make his way in twenty days for the distance of a league. The river too
is so little frequented that even an Indian canoe scarcely passes
oftener than once in two months. At this most momentous and perilous
crisis a gust of wind filled the sails of our little vessel and effected
in a marvellous manner our deliverance."
To his botanist friend, Willdenow, he writes:--"During four months of
this journey we passed the night in forests, surrounded by crocodiles,
boa constrictors, and tigers, which are here bold enough to attack a
canoe, while for food we had nothing better than rice, ants, bananas,
and occasionally the flesh of monkeys, with only the waters of the
Orinoco wherewith to quench our thirst. Thus have we with difficulty
toiled, our hands and faces swollen with mosquito bites, from Mondvaca
to the volcano of Duida, from the limits of Quito to the frontier of
Surinam--through tracts of country extending over twenty thousand square
miles, in which no Indian is to be met with, and where the traveller
encounters only apes or serpents.
"In Guiana the mosquitoes abound in such clouds as to darken the air,
and, as it is absolutely necessary to keep head and hands constantly
covered, no writing can be done by daylight; the intolerable pain
produced by the attacks of these insects renders it impossible to hold
the pen steadily. All our work had therefore to be carried on by the
light of a fire, in an Indian hut, where no ray of sunlight could
penetrate, and into which we had to creep on our hands and knees. Here,
if we escaped the torment of the mosquitoes, we were almost choked by
the smoke. At Maypures, we and the Indians took refuge in the midst of
the cascade, where the spray from the foaming stream kept off the
insects. At Higuerote, the people are accustomed at night to lie buried
three or four inches deep in sand, with only the head exposed."
Sometimes twenty-four Indians were in Humboldt's employ for months
together, and fourteen mules were required to carry his instruments and
plants.
After a year and a half spent in South America, Humboldt sailed for
Cuba, where he remained for several months, collecting material for his
"Political Essay on the Island of Cuba." From there he went to Quito, in
Ecuador, crossing one of the most difficult passes in the Andes, "the
path so narrow that it rarely exceeds twelve or sixteen inches in width,
and for the most part resembles an open gallery cut in the rock," and
the Paramos of Pasto, "desert regions where, at a height of about twelve
thousand feet above the sea, all vegetation ceases, and the cold is so
intense as to penetrate to the very bones."
In June, 1802, they reached Quito, where, five years previously, an
earthquake had destroyed forty thousand people. This month they made the
ascent of Chimborazo, at that time regarded as the highest mountain in
the world. "At certain places," he says, "where it was very steep, we
were obliged to use both hands and feet, and the edges of the rock were
so sharp that we were painfully cut, especially on our hands." As they
climbed on, "one after another, we all began to feel indisposed, and
experienced a feeling of nausea accompanied by giddiness, which was far
more distressing than the difficulty of breathing.... Blood exuded from
the lips and gums, and the eyes became bloodshot.... A few rock-lichens
were to be observed above the line of perpetual snow, at a height of
sixteen thousand nine hundred and twenty feet; the last green moss we
noticed was growing about twenty-six hundred feet lower. A butterfly was
captured by M. Bonpland, at a height of fifteen thousand feet, and a
fly was observed sixteen hundred feet higher.... When we were at a
height of about seventeen thousand four hundred feet we encountered a
violent hailstorm." The height of the mountain is over twenty-one
thousand feet.
The intrepid Humboldt four times crossed the Andes; he travelled over
Peru; he called attention to the fertilizing properties of guano, and
then he sailed for Mexico, where he remained for a year. Here he met a
lady greatly esteemed in that country, called the "fair Rodriguez," the
most beautiful woman he had seen in his journeys, but whom he admired
more "for her graces of mind than her beauty of person." He regarded her
as an American Madame de Stael. It is asserted that the grave man of
science was deeply interested, but it was too late--she was already the
wife of another, and had two children. Humboldt, like most other great
men, all his life enjoyed the society of intellectual women, who were a
constant inspiration.
After two months passed at Havana, Humboldt came to the United States,
spending three weeks with President Jefferson, at his home at
Monticello. He never failed to speak in grateful terms of the courtesy
he received from Americans. He studied carefully our institutions, and
greatly admired the republic; slavery alone saddened him.
On July 9, 1804, after five years of absence, he set sail for France.
Europe received him with universal joy. He had been reported dead. He
was thirty-five, handsome, and famous. He had travelled over forty
thousand miles, and brought back over sixty thousand specimens of
plants. He was made a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin,
and later a member of the Legion of Honor, and of about one hundred and
fifty other societies; indeed, of all the great associations of the
land.
And now the result of his travels must be given to the world in books.
While he was preparing them, he yet found time to spend months together
in the Ecole Polytechnique, experimenting in chemistry with his devoted
friend Gay-Lussac; with Biot, he made investigations in magnetism; with
Arago, in astronomy; with Cuvier, in anatomy.
Most of the time from 1808 to 1827, nineteen years, he remained in
Paris, devoting his time to his great work. In the forenoons he usually
studied and experimented; from twelve to seven he wrote, and then, if
his evenings were spent socially, he wrote again from midnight till
half-past two, usually allowing himself only four hours for sleep. So
popular was he that he often went to five receptions in an evening.
Year after year his works on America appeared, till twenty-nine volumes
were published! The first part was entitled, "Voyage in the Equatorial
Regions of the New Continent." This described a portion of his journey
in three volumes; views of the Cordilleras and the native peoples of
America, one volume with sixty plates; an atlas of the new continent,
with thirty-nine maps; a critical examination of the history of the
geography of the middle ages, in five volumes. The second part related
largely to zooelogy and comparative anatomy in the new regions; the third
part related chiefly to Mexico; the fourth part to astronomical
observations, measurement with the barometer, etc.; the fifth part,
geology, and the geography of plants; the sixth part, plants in Mexico,
Cuba, and South America, in two volumes, with nearly one hundred and
fifty engravings; two volumes more, with one hundred and twenty colored
plates; seven volumes of new species, with seven hundred engravings, and
several other books. The expense of bringing out these works was
enormous; the copper-plate illustrations cost in printing and paper
alone about one hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
As the price of the volumes was about twenty-seven hundred dollars, the
number of purchasers was comparatively limited. Humboldt had used all
his fortune in his journeys and in publishing his books, and was now a
poor man, dependent upon a pension from his king. But he was the pride
of his nation, and beloved in France as well.
Humboldt and Guizot were like brothers, and for forty years corresponded
affectionately with each other. Arago he held "dearest in this life."
His last letter to Arago, "small in size but so full of matter," was
the greatest comfort to the dying astronomer.
During all these busy twenty years he had honors heaped upon him. He was
offered the position of Ambassador to Vienna, but declined. He
accompanied the King of Prussia to England in 1814, and was with him at
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle and at the Congress of Verona.
Busy as he was, he seemed to find time to befriend everybody, especially
young men. Liebig says in the preface of his work dedicated to Humboldt:
"During my residence in Paris, I gave a course of lectures at the
Academy in the winter of 1823-4, upon an analytic investigation of
Howard's fulminating mercury and silver--my first effort in the field of
science.
"At the close of the sitting of March 22, 1824, while busy packing up my
apparatus, a gentleman came up to me from among a group of academicians,
and entered into conversation. In the most winning manner, he made
inquiry as to the objects of my study, my present occupations, and the
plans I had laid for the future. We separated without my knowing to whom
I was indebted for this kind expression of interest, for my shyness and
inexperience had not allowed me to make the inquiry.
"This conversation laid the foundation of my future career, for I thus
acquired a kind friend and a powerful patron in my scientific
undertakings....
"From that time all doors were thrown open to me, I had access to every
institution and every laboratory: the great interest you took in me
procured the love and intimate friendship of my instructors, Gay-Lussac,
Dulong, and Thenard, to all of whom I became deeply attached. The
confidence which you accorded me was the means of my introduction into a
sphere of labor which during the last sixteen years it has ever been my
ambition worthily to occupy."
When Agassiz was a poor medical student in Paris, Humboldt visited him.
Agassiz says:--
"After a cordial greeting, he walked straight to what was then my
library--a small book-shelf containing a few classics, the meanest
editions, bought for a trifle, along the quays, some works on philosophy
and history, chemistry and physics, his own 'Aspects of Nature,'
'Aristotle's Zooelogy,' 'Linnaeus' Systema Naturae,' in several editions,
'Cuvier's Regne Animal,' and quite a number of manuscript quartos,
copies which, with the assistance of my brother, I had made of works I
was too poor to buy, though they cost but a few francs a volume....
"It was no doubt apparent to him that I was not over-familiar with the
good things of this world, for I shortly afterward received an
invitation to meet him at six o'clock in the Galerie Vitree of the
Palais Royal, whence he led me into one of those restaurants the
tempting windows of which I had occasionally passed by. When we were
seated, he half laughingly, half inquiringly, asked me whether I would
order the dinner. I declined the invitation, saying that we should fare
better if he would take the trouble. And for three hours, which passed
like a dream, I had him all to myself. How he examined me, and how much
I learned in that short time! How to work, what to do, and what to
avoid; how to live; how to distribute my time; what methods of study to
pursue; these were the things of which he talked to me on that
delightful evening."
Noble Humboldt! so great that everybody honored and looked up to him; so
kindly interested in others that everybody loved him!
In 1827, at the request of his king, Humboldt returned to Berlin, and
became chamberlain, with a yearly salary of five thousand thalers. He
gave this year, before the university, a course of free, public lectures
upon physical geography, sixty nine in all, which afterwards formed the
basis of his grandest work, "Cosmos." The first four lectures were a
general description of nature; then astronomy, the principal outlines of
geology and meteorology, the distribution of plants and animals, the
history of the study of our globe, volcanoes, the ocean, the atmosphere,
and the human race.
The lectures were crowded and the applause unexampled. A second course,
of sixteen lectures, was given to the public in the music hall, the
royal family coming with the thousands who gathered each evening.
A grand way to educate the people! Would that at the expense of some
philanthropist such a course might be given in every city.
In 1829, at the request of Emperor Nicholas, Humboldt made a scientific
expedition to eastern Russia, travelling over nine thousand miles in
twenty-five weeks. He was now in his sixtieth year, but he climbed high
mountains with no apparent fatigue.
The emperor was delighted with the results of the expedition, which were
published in several volumes. He said, "Your sojourn in Russia has been
the cause of immense progress to my country; you spread a life-giving
influence wherever you go." He presented Humboldt with a sable cloak
worth five thousand rubles, and a malachite vase seven feet high, worth
nearly forty thousand rubles.
The death of friends saddened this busy year, 1829. William's wife had
died, and left him utterly desolate. In his ministry to several
countries, she had honored and graced his diplomatic positions. He did
not long survive her. "Wholly given up to grief," said Alexander, "he
seeks in the depth of his misery the only consolation that can render
life supportable, while he occupies himself with intellectual pursuits
as with the drudgery of a task."
He died four years later, tenderly watched over by his illustrious
brother, to whom he said in dying, "Think of me often, but always with
cheerfulness. I have been very happy, and even to-day has been a
glorious day with me, for there is nothing more beautiful than love. I
shall soon be with _the mother_, and enter upon a higher order of
being."
This death was a great blow to Alexander. He said, "I am quite bereft of
hope. I did not think that my old eyes could have shed so many tears....
I am the unhappiest of men.... I have lost half of myself." A few months
later William's eldest daughter, Caroline, died, to whom Alexander was
tenderly attached. From henceforth his life was devoted to his sovereign
Frederick William IV., to "Cosmos," and to his ever widening circle of
friends. Two thousand letters or more came to him yearly, and till late
in life he answered each one, and answered it promptly, showing thereby
how truly well bred he was in manner, and how truly kind in heart.
In 1834, when he was sixty-five, he began the publication of "Cosmos,"
in five volumes, the "most comprehensive compendium of modern science."
It was soon translated into English, meeting with a cordial reception in
that country, and into French, Dutch, and Italian.
Even at the age of sixty-five, so eager was he to know more that he
attended courses of lectures on Grecian antiquities and literature, and
upon chemistry, taking notes among the young university students. He now
lived with the king, at Sans-Souci, spending every evening with him, and
becoming the confidential friend of both king and queen. When Humboldt
was ill, the king would read to him by the hour.
Frederick William IV. conferred on him the decoration of the Star of the
Red Eagle, the Order of the Black Eagle, the highest honor in the royal
power to confer, and the Order of Merit, given to those "who throughout
Europe have won for themselves a name either in the arts or sciences."
Till the last years of his life Humboldt showed the same marvellous
energy and industry. At eighty he said, "I am more than ever filled with
a zest for work and literary distinction." When he wrote to friends for
information in finishing "Cosmos," he asked for speedy answers, saying,
"The dead ride fast." On the fortieth anniversary of his return to
Europe, a fete was given in his honor, by the Berlin Academy. Later his
bust was placed in the French Institute. The freedom of the city of
Berlin was presented to him. America sent him in 1858, on his
eighty-ninth birthday, an album of nine maps, showing the scores of
towns, counties, rivers, bays, and mountains which had received his
name. Letters came from all parts of the world, breathing love and
admiration. Yet, with all this honor, he was often lonely, and spoke of
the _ennui_ of life. After the regency, Humboldt lived at Berlin, in an
unostentatious home, with his attendant, Seifert.
On May 6, 1859, at half-past two in the afternoon, death came to
Alexander von Humboldt, at the age of ninety. His mind was clear to the
last.
All ranks gathered at the public funeral, for all, from king to peasant,
had lost a friend. With uncovered head, the Prince Regent received the
procession at the door of the cathedral, amid the tolling of the bells,
and then they buried him at the summer home of his childhood, Tegel, by
the side of William.
A new edition of his select works, including "Cosmos," was published in
Stuttgart, in 1874, in thirty-six volumes.
Great in learning, great in achievement, great in will-power; unwise
sometimes in utterance, as in the Varnhagen letters--how seldom is it
safe or wise to express our inmost thoughts;--sarcastic sometimes in his
language--a dangerous power, to be used sparingly, if indeed ever,--and
yet withal a noble, unselfish, marvellous-minded man, who, as Agassiz
says, "exerted upon science a personal influence which is
incalculable."
SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
[Illustration: SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.]
Coleridge said, "Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would
have been the first poet of his age."
Said Professor Silliman's "American Journal of Science and Arts:" "His
reputation is too intimately associated with the eternal laws of nature
to suffer decay; and the name of Davy, like those of Archimedes,
Galileo, and Newton, which grow greener by time, will descend to the
latest posterity."
Davy was poor and self-taught, but he triumphed over obstacles, and died
universally lamented.
The eldest son in a family of five children, Humphrey Davy was born at
Penzance, Cornwall, England, December 17, 1778, the year in which Carl
Linnaeus died. He was a bright, active child, making rhymes when he was
five years old, and reciting them at the Christmas gatherings. In
consequence of his retentive memory, he could repeat a great part of
"Pilgrim's Progress" before he could read it. This book and "AEsop's
Fables" were his favorites.
When Humphrey was six, he was sent to a grammar school kept by Rev. Mr.
Coryton, a man who had the vicious habit of punishing by pulling the
pupils' ears. On one occasion, Humphrey came to school with a large
plaster on each ear. Upon being asked what was the matter, he said, with
a grave face, that he had "put the plasters on to prevent a
mortification!"
As he grew older, he composed Latin and English verses easily, and was
in great demand among the boys as a writer of valentines and
love-letters. Though shy in manner, with his vivid imagination and flow
of language, he told stories remarkably well, and might have been seen,
often, in a cart at the Star Inn, addressing a most attentive audience.
Says his brother, Dr. John Davy, "Humphrey, when a boy, was fond of
declaiming, and indulged in it in his solitary walks and rambles. On one
occasion it is recorded of him, that, on his way to visit a poor patient
in the country (during his apprenticeship), in the fever of declamation,
he threw out of his hand a vial of medicine which he had to administer,
and that when he arrived at the bedside of the poor woman he was
surprised at the loss of it. The potion was found the next day in a
hay-field adjoining the path."
When Humphrey was fourteen he attended the Truro Grammar School for a
year, where he was greatly liked for his good-humor, affectionate
disposition, and originality. Says Mr. Nicholls, a school friend, "I can
never forget that as boys we knew and loved each other. I recollect a
visit he paid in company with his aunt at my father's, who then resided
at Lanarth. He was a great favorite; but there was even then an original
mode of thinking and acting observable in him,--one instance of which I
well remember;--it was on rather a hot day, when my father, mother, your
aunt, Humphrey, and myself, were to walk to a place a mile or two
distant, I forget for what purpose. Whilst others complained of the
heat, and whilst I unbuttoned my waistcoat, Humphrey appeared with his
great-coat close-buttoned up to his chin, for the purpose, as he
declared, of keeping _out_ the heat. This was laughed at at the time,
but it struck me then, as it appears to me now, as evincing originality
of thought and an indisposition to be led by the example of others."
At fifteen his school education was considered complete. The next year
he studied French, gave a good deal of time to fishing, of which he was
always fond, and apparently had little definite purpose. About this time
his father died, and the straitened circumstances of the family now
seemed to awaken all the energy and nobility of his natu
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