Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860

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That will not strike? Ah, scorn and shame!
Shame for the apostate unforgiven,
Beholding an unconquered fame
In undiscovered fields of heaven!

For Beauty not by one alone
In her completeness is revealed:
The smiles and tears her face hath shown
To thee from others are concealed.

Men see not in the midnight sky
All miracles she worketh there:
It is the blindness of the eye
That paints its darkness on the air.

Two friends who wander by the shore
Look not upon the selfsame seas,
Hearing two voices in the roar,
Because of different memories.

For him whose love the sea hath drowned,
It moans the music of his wrong;
For him whose life with love is crowned,
It breaks upon the beach in song.

So dreaming not another's dream,
But still interpreting thine own,
By woodland wild and quiet stream
Thou wanderest in the world alone.

Then what thou slayest none can save:
Silent and dark oblivion rolls
Over the glory in the grave
Of fierce and suicidal souls.

From that dark wave no pleading ghost
With pointing hand shall ever rise,
To say,--The world hath treasure lost,
And here the buried treasure lies!

Beware, and yet beware! my fear
Unfolds a vision in the gloom
Of Beauty borne upon her bier,
And Darkness crouching in the tomb.

Beware, and yet beware! her end
Is thine; or else, her shadowy hearse
Beside, thy spirit shall descend
The vast sepulchral universe,

And, with the passion that remains
In desolated hearts, implore
The spectre sitting bound in chains
To yield what he shall not restore:--

The mystery whose soul divine
Breathed love, and only love, on thee;
Which better far had not been thine,
Than, having been, to cease to be.

MARY SOMERVILLE.

There have been in every age a few women of genius who have become the
successful rivals of man in the paths which they have severally chosen.
Three instances are of our time. Mrs. Browning is called a poet even by
poets; the artists admit that Rosa Bonheur is a painter; and the
mathematicians accord to Mary Somerville a high rank among themselves.

"In pure mathematics," said Humboldt, "Mrs. Somerville is strong." Of
no other woman of the age could the remark have been made; and this
would probably be true, were the walks of science as marked by the
feminine footprint as are those of literature. To read mathematical
works is an easy task; the formula can be learned and their meaning
apprehended: to read the most profound of them, with such appreciation
that one stands side by side with the great minds who originated them,
requires a higher order of intellect; and far-reaching indeed is that
which, pondering in the study on a few phenomena known by observation,
develops the theory of worlds, traces back for ages their history, and
sketches the outline of their future destiny.

Caroline Herschel, the sister of Sir William, was doubtless gifted with
much of the Herschel talent, and, under other circumstances, her mind
might have turned to original research; but she belonged rather to the
last century, and Hanover was not a region favorable to intellectual
efforts in her sex. She lived the life of a simple-hearted,
truth-loving woman; most worthy of the name she bore, she made notes
for her brother, she swept the heavens and found comets for him, she
computed and tabulated his observations; it seems never to have
occurred to her to be other than the patient, helping sister of a truly
great man.

Mrs. Somerville's life has been more individual. She is the daughter of
Admiral Fairfax, and was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, December 26,
1780, in the house of her uncle, the father of her present husband.

The home training and the school education of the daughters of Great
Britain are very unlike those of their American sisters. The manners
and customs of the Old World change so slowly, that one can scarcely
assent to a remark made by Sir John Herschel:--"The Englishman sticks
to his old ways, but is not cemented to them." The Englishwoman submits
to authority from her infancy; belonging to the middle class, she does
not expect the higher education of the nobility; a woman, she is not
supposed to desire to enter into the studies of her brothers. A
governess, generally the daughter of a curate, who prefers this
position to that of "companion" to a fine lady, is provided for her in
her early years. If the choice be fortunate and the parents watchful,
the young girl is thoroughly taught in a few branches of what are
commonly considered feminine studies. She learns to read and to speak
French; tutors are employed for music and drawing: every young lady
above the rank of the tradesman's daughter plays well upon the piano;
every one has her portfolio of drawings, in which sketches from Nature
can always be found, and frequently the family portraits. The history
of the country is considered a study suitable for girls; the Englishman
expects that his daughter shall know something of the past, of which he
is so justly proud.

But the more solid book-learning given to the girls of New England,
even in the public schools, is known only to the daughters of the
higher classes, and among them an instance like that of Lady Jane Grey
could scarcely now be found. As the girls and boys are never taught in
the same schools, no taste is aroused by the example of manly studies.
An English girl is astonished to hear that an American girl passes a
public examination, like her brothers, and with them competes for
prizes; she doubts the truthfulness of some of the representations of
life found in American novels; and so little is the freedom of manners
understood, that the American traveller is frequently asked,--"Can it
really be as Mrs. Stowe represents in America? Does a young lady really
give a party herself?"

The difference that one would expect is found between the women of
England or Scotland and the women of New England. The young
Englishwoman is tasteful and elegant, mindful of all the proprieties
and graces of social life; she speaks slowly and cautiously, and gives
her opinions with great modesty. These are not at present the
characteristics of the American girl.

Mary Fairfax passed through the usual routine. At fourteen she had read
the books to be found in her father's house, including the few works
on Navigation which were necessary to him in his profession. She had
thus obtained an idea of the world of science, and it was dull to
return to worsted-work for amusement. The needle, which has been the
fetter of so many women, became, however, in her hand, magnetic, and
pointed her to her destiny. She was in the habit of taking her work
into her brother's study, and listening to his recitations; the
revelations of Geometry were thus opened to her; she listened and
worked for a time, until the desire to know more of this region of form
and law, of harmony and of relations, became too strong to be resisted;
the worsted was thrown aside, and she ventured to ask the tutor to
instruct her. The honest man told her that he was no mathematician: he
could lend her Euclid, but he could do no more.

The first great step was now taken; Euclid was quickly read; other
books were borrowed from other friends; Bonnycastle's and Euler's
Algebra were obtained, and she exulted in the use of those mystic
symbols, _x, y_, and _z_. Her parents looked on with indifference; so
that the music were not neglected and the governess reported well of
her studies, they felt there was no harm in her amusing herself as she
chose. When the days of the governess were over, the young lady "came
out" in Edinburgh, and mingled much with the best society. This most
picturesque city had long been the resort of the most gifted minds; men
of literature and men of science made the charm of its winter life.
Never was it more the gathering-place of intellect than in the early
part of this century; but there was no room for a woman of genius, and
the young girl's friends advised her to conceal her pursuits. Move as
quietly, however, and as unobtrusively as she might in the brilliant
circle, her genius was not without recognition. There was a word of
encouragement from Professor Playfair. "Persevere in your study," said
he; "it will be a source of happiness to you when all else fails; for
it is the study of truth." She had a champion, too, in the dreaded
critic, Jeffrey. "I am told," said a friend, writing to him, "that the
ladies of Edinburgh are literary, and that one of them sets up as a
blue-stocking and an astronomer." "The lady of whom you speak," replied
Jeffrey, "may wear blue stockings, but her petticoats are so long that
I have never seen them."

Mrs. Somerville has been twice married. Her first husband, a gentleman
of the name of Greig, regarded her pursuits as her parents had, simply
with indifference. Dr. Somerville, her present husband, has taken the
utmost pains to secure her time for her studies, and has himself
relieved her from many household cares.

The simplicity of character which belonged to her in early life was not
lost when her reputation became established. The Royal Society, whose
doors do not open at every knock, admitted her to membership, and, by
their order, her bust was sculptured by Chantrey, and now adorns the
hall of the Society in Somerset House. During the sittings for this
purpose, a lady, a friend of the sculptor, him to introduce her to Mrs.
Somerville. Chantrey consented, and made a dinner-party for the
purpose. The two ladies were placed side by side at table, and the
benevolent artist rejoiced to perceive, from the flow of talk, that
they were mutually pleased. The next day, to his astonishment, his
friend called on him in a state of great indignation, believing herself
the victim of a practical joke. "How could you do so?" said she. "You
knew that I did not want to know _that_ Mrs. Somerville; I wanted to
know the astronomer: that lady talked of the theatre, the opera, and
common things."

The anecdote so often told of Laplace's compliment is literally true.
Mrs. Somerville dined with this great geometer in Paris. "I write
books," said Laplace, "that no one can read. Only two women have ever
read the 'Mecanique Celeste'; both are Scotch women: Mrs. Greig and
yourself."

Upon the "Mecanique Celeste" Mrs. Somerville's greatest work is
founded. "I simply translated Laplace's work," said she, "from algebra
into common language." That is, she did what very few men and no other
woman could do. It is of this work of Laplace that Bonaparte said, "I
will give to it my first _six months_ of leisure." The student who
reads it by the aid of Dr. Bowditch's notes has little idea of the
difficulties to be met in the original work. Even Dr. Bowditch himself
said, "I never come across one of Laplace's 'Thus it plainly appears,'
without feeling sure that I have got hours of hard study before me, to
fill up the chasm and show _how_ it plainly appears."

This "translation into common language" was undertaken at the request
of Lord Brougham, who desired a mathematical work suited to the
"Library of Useful Knowledge." The manuscript was submitted to Sir John
Herschel, who expressed himself "delighted with it,--that it was a book
for posterity, but quite above the class for which Lord Brougham's
course was intended." It was published at once, and became the
text-book for the students of Cambridge.

"The Connection of the Physical Sciences" and the "Physical Geography"
are the later works of Mrs. Somerville. These volumes have probably
been more read in our country than in Europe; for it is a common remark
of the scientific writers of Great Britain, that their "readers are
found in the United States." They contain vast collections of facts in
all branches of Physical Science, connected together by the delicate
web of Mrs. Somerville's own thought, showing an amount and variety of
learning to be compared only to that of Humboldt.

Provided with an "open sesame" to her heart, in the shape of a letter
from her old friend, Lady Herschel, we sought the acquaintance of Mrs.
Somerville in the spring of 1858. She was at that time residing in
Florence, and, sending the letter and a card to her by the servant, we
awaited the reply in the large Florentine parlor, in the fireplace of
which a wood-fire blazed, suggestive of English comfort,--a suggestion
which in Italy rarely becomes a reality.

There was the usual delay; then a footstep came slowly through the
outer room, and a very old man, exceedingly tall, with a red silk
handkerchief around his head, entered, and introduced himself as Doctor
Somerville. He is proud of his wife; a pardonable weakness in any man,
especially so in the husband of Mary Somerville. He began at once to
talk of her. "Mrs. Somerville," he said, "was much interested in the
Americans, for she claimed a connection with the family of Washington.
Washington's half-brother, Lawrence, married Anne Fairfax, who was of
the Scotch family of that name. When Mrs. Somerville's father, as
Lieutenant Fairfax, was ordered to America, General Washington wrote to
him as a family relative, and invited him to his house. Lieutenant
Fairfax applied to his commanding officer for leave to accept the
invitation, and it was refused; they never met. Much to the regret of
the Somervilles, the letter of Washington has been lost. The Fairfaxes
of Virginia are of the same family, and occasionally some member of the
American branch visits his Scotch cousins."

While Doctor Somerville was talking of these things, Mrs. Somerville
came tripping into the room, speaking with the vivacity of a young
person. She was seventy-seven years old, but appeared twenty years
younger. Her face is pleasing, the forehead low and broad, the eyes
blue,--the features so regular, that, as sculptured by Chantrey, in the
bust at Somerset House, they convey the idea of a very handsome woman.
Neither this bust nor the picture of her, however, gives a correct
impression, except in the outline of the head and shoulders. She spoke
with a strong Scotch accent, and was slightly affected by deafness.

At this time, Mrs. Somerville was re-writing her "Physical Geography."
She said that she worked as well as when she was younger, but was more
quickly fatigued; yet, in order to gain time, she had given up her
afternoon nap, without apparent injury to her health. Her working hours
were in the morning, and she never refused a visitor after noon. For
her first work she said she computed a good deal; and here she stepped
quickly into an adjoining room, and brought out a mass of manuscript
computations made for that work, the mere sight of which would give a
headache to most women. The conversation was rather of the familiar and
chatty order, and marked by great simplicity. She touched upon the
recent discoveries in chemical science,--upon California, its gold and
its consequences, some good from which she thought would be found in
the improvement of seamanship,--on the nebulae, more and more of which
she thought would be resolved, while yet there might exist irresolvable
nebulous matter, such as composed the tails of comets, or the
satellites of the planets, which she thought had other uses than as
their subordinates. Of Doctor Whewell's attempt to prove that our
planet is the only one inhabited she spoke with disapprobation; she
said she believed that the other planets might be inhabited by beings
of a higher order than ourselves.

On subsequent visits, Mrs. Somerville had much to say of the Americans.
She regretted that she so rarely received scientific articles from
America; the papers of Lieutenant Maury alone reached her. She spoke of
the late Doctor Bowditch with great interest, and said she had had some
correspondence with one of his sons; of Professor Peirce as a great
mathematician; and she was much interested in the successful
photography of the stars by Mr. Whipple. To a traveller, thousands of
miles from home, the mere mention of familiar names is cheering.

Mrs. Somerville resides in Florence on account of the health of her
husband. A little garden, well-stocked with rose-bushes, which she
shows with great pride to her visitors, furnishes her with a means of
healthy recreation after her severe studies. Her children are a son by
Mr. Greig and two daughters by Doctor Somerville. In early life, Mrs.
Somerville was a fine musician: the daughters have inherited this
talent; and having lived long in Florence, they speak Italian with a
perfect accent. "I speak Italian," said Mrs. Somerville; "but no one
could ever take me for other than a Scotchwoman."

No one can make the acquaintance of this remarkable woman without
increased admiration for her. The ascent of the steep and rugged path
of science has not unfitted her for the drawing-room circle; the hours
of devotion to close study have not been incompatible with the duties
of the wife and the mother; the mind that has turned to rigid
demonstration has not thereby lost its faith in the truths which
figures will not prove. "I have no doubt," said she, in speaking of the
heavenly bodies, "that in another state of existence we shall know more
about these things."

ROBA DI ROMA.

MAY IN ROME.

May has come again,--"the delicate-footed May," her feet hidden in
flowers as she wanders over the Campagna, and the cool breeze of the
Campagna blowing back her loosened hair. She calls to us from the open
fields to leave the wells of damp churches and shadowy streets, and to
come abroad and meet her where the mountains look down from roseate
heights of vanishing snow upon plains of waving grain. The hedges have
put on their best draperies of leaves and flowers, and, girdled in at
their waist by double osier bands, stagger luxuriantly along the road
like a drunken Bacchanal procession, crowned with festive ivy, and
holding aloft their snowy clusters of elder-blossoms like _thyrsi_.
Among their green robes may be seen thousands of beautiful
wild-flowers,--the sweet-scented laurustinus, all sorts of running
vetches and wild sweet-pea, the delicate vases of dewy morning-glories,
clusters of eglantine or sweetbrier roses, fragrant acacia-blossoms
covered with bees and buzzing flies, the gold of glowing gorses, and
scores of purple and yellow flowers, of which I know not the names. On
the gray walls, vines, grass, and the humble class of flowers which go
by the ignoble name of weeds straggle and cluster; and over them, held
down by the green cord of the stalk, balance the bursted balloons of
hundreds of flaming scarlet poppies that seem to have fed on fire. The
undulating swell of the Campagna is here ablaze with them for acres,
and there deepening with growing grain, or snowed over with myriads of
daisies. Music and song, too, are not wanting; hundreds of birds are in
the hedges. The lark, "from his moist cabinet rising," rains down his
trills of incessant song from invisible heights of blue sky; and
whenever one passes the wayside groves, a nightingale is sure to bubble
into song. The oranges, too, are in blossom, perfuming the air;
locust-trees are tasselled with odorous flowers; and over the walls of
the Campagna villa bursts a cascade of vines covered with foamy Banksia
roses.

The Carnival of the kitchen-gardens is now commencing. Peas are already
an old story, strawberries are abundant, and cherries are beginning to
make their appearance, in these first days of May; old women sell them
at every corner, tied together in tempting bunches, as in "the
cherry-orchard" which Miss Edgeworth has made fairy-land in our
childish memories. Asparagus also has long since come; and artichokes
make their daily appearance on the table, sliced up and fried, or
boiled whole, or coming up roasted and gleaming with butter, with more
outside capes and coats than an ideal English coachman of the olden
times. _Finocchi_, too, are here, tasting like anisette, and good to
mix in the salads. And great beans lie about in piles, the _contadini_
twisting them out of their thick pods with their thumbs, to eat them
raw. Nay, even the _signoria_ of the noble families do the same, as
they walk through the gardens, and think them such a luxury that they
eat them raw for breakfast. But over and above all other vegetables are
the lettuces, which are one of the great staples of food for the Roman
people, and so crisp, fresh, delicate, and high-flavored, that be who
eats them once will hold Nebuchadnezzar no longer a subject for
compassion, but rather of envy. Drowned in fresh olive-oil and strong
with vinegar, they are a feast for the gods; and even in their natural
state, without condiments, they are by no means to be despised. At the
corners of the streets they lie piled in green heaps, and are sold at a
_baiocco_ for five heads. At noontide, the _contadini_ and laborers
feed upon them without even the condiment of salt, crunching their
white teeth through the crisp, wet leaves, and alternating a bite at a
great wedge of bread; and toward nightfall, one may see carts laden
high up with closely packed masses of them, coming in from the Campagna
for the market. In a word, the _festa_ of the vegetables, at which they
do not eat, but are eaten, and the Carnival of the kitchen-garden have
come.

But--a thousand, thousand pardons, O mighty Cavolo!--how have I dared
omit thy august name? On my knees, O potentest of vegetables, I crave
forgiveness! I will burn at thy shrine ten waxen candles, in penance,
if thou wilt pardon the sin and shame of my forgetfulness! The smoke of
thy altar-fires, the steam of thy incense, and the odors of thy
sanctity rise from every hypaethral shrine in Rome. Out-doors and
in-doors, wherever the foot wanders, on palatial stairs or in the hut
of poverty, in the convent pottage and the _Lepre_ soup, in the wooden
platter of the beggar and the silver tureen of the prince, thou fillest
our nostrils, thou satisfiest our stomach. Thou hast no false pride;
great as thou art, thou condescendest to be exchanged for a _baiocco_.
Dear enchantress! to thee, and to thy glorious cousin Broccoli, that
tender-hearted, efflorescent nymph, the Egeria of the _osteria con
cucina_, the peerless maid that goes with the steak and accepts
martyrdom without moan, to drive away the demon of Hunger from her
devoted followers,--all honor! Far away, whenever I inhale thy odor, I
shall think of "Roman Joys"; a whiff from thine altar in a foreign land
will bear me back to the Eternal City, "the City of the Soul," the City
of the Cabbage, the home of the Dioscuri, _Cavolo_ and _Broccoli!_ Yes,
as Paris is recalled by the odor of chocolate, and London by the damp
steam of malt, so shall Rome come back when my nostrils are filled with
thy penetrative fragrance!

Saunter out at any of the city-gates, or lean over the wall at San
Giovanni, (and where will you find a more charming spot?) or look down
from the windows of the Villa Negroni, and your eye will surely fall on
one of the Roman kitchen-gardens, patterned out in even rows and
squares of green. Nothing can be prettier or more tasteful in their
arrangement than these variegated carpets of vegetables. A great
cistern of running water crowns the height of the ground, which is used
for the purposes of irrigation, and towards nightfall the vent is
opened, and you may see the gardeners imbanking the channelled rows to
let the inundation flow through hundreds of little lanes of
intersection and canals between the beds, and then banking them up at
the entrance when a sufficient quantity of water has entered. In this
way they fertilize and refresh the soil, which else would parch under
the continuous sun. And this, indeed, is all the fertilization they
need,--so strong is the soil all over the Campagna. The accretions and
decay of thousands of years have covered it with a loam whose richness
and depth are astonishing. Dig where you will, for ten feet down, and
you do not pass through its wonderfully fertile loam into gravel, and
the slightest labor is repaid a hundred-fold.

As one looks from the Villa Negroni windows, he cannot fail to be
impressed by the strange changes through which this wonderful city has
passed. The very spot on which Nero, the insane emperor-artist, fiddled
while Rome was burning has now become a vast kitchen-garden, belonging
to Prince Massimo, (himself a descendant, as he claims, of Fabius
Cunctator,) where men no longer, but only lettuces, asparagus, and
artichokes, are ruthlessly cut down. The inundations are not for mock
sea-fights among slaves, but for the peaceful purposes of irrigation.
And though the fiddle of Nero is only traditional, the trumpets of the
French, murdering many an unhappy strain near by, are a most melancholy
fact. In the bottom of the valley, a noble old villa, covered with
frescoes, has been turned into a manufactory of bricks, and the very
Villa Negroni itself is now doomed to be the site of a railway station.
Yet here the princely family of Negroni lived, and the very lady at
whose house Lucrezia Borgia took her famous revenge may once have
sauntered under the walls, which still glow with ripening oranges, to
feed the gold-fish in the fountain, or walked with stately friends
through the long alleys of clipped cypresses, and pic-nicked _alia
Giorgione_ on lawns which are now but kitchen-gardens, dedicated to San
Cavolo. It pleases me, also, descending in memories to a later time, to
look up at the summer-house built above the gateway, and recall the
days when Shelley and Keats came there to visit their friend Severn,
the artist, (for that was his studio,) and look over the same alleys
and gardens, and speak words one would have been so glad to hear,--and,
coming still later down, to recall the hearty words and brave heart of
America's best sculptor and my dear friend, Crawford.

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