“The last time I saw Mrs. Somerville, she took me into her garden to show me her rose-bushes, in which she took great pride.  Mrs. Somerville was not a mathematician only, she spoke Italian fluently, and was in early life a good musician.

“I could but admire Mrs. Somerville as a woman.  The ascent of the steep and rugged path of science had not unfitted her for the drawing-room circle; the hours of devotion to close study have not been incompatible with the duties of wife and mother; the mind that has turned to rigid demonstration has not thereby lost its faith in those 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.’

“Mrs. Somerville, at the age of seventy-seven, was interested in every new improvement, hopeful, cheery, and happy.  Her society was sought by the most cultivated people in the world. [She died at ninety-two.]

“Berlin, May 7, 1858.  Humboldt had replied to my letter of introduction by a note, saying that he should be happy to see me at 2 P.M., May 7.  Of course I was punctual.  Humboldt is one of several residents in a very ordinary-looking house on Oranienberge strasse.

“All along up the flight of stairs to his room were printed notices telling persons where to leave packages and letters for Alexander Humboldt.

“The servant showed me at first into a sort of anteroom, hung with deers’ horns and carpeted with tigers’ skins, then into the study, and asked me to take a seat on the sofa.  The room was very warm; comfort was evidently carefully considered, for cushions were all around; the sofa was handsomely covered with worsted embroidery.  A long study-table was full of books and papers.

“I had waited but a few moments when Humboldt came in; he was a smaller man than I had expected to see.  He was neater, more ‘trig,’ than the pictures represent him; in looking at the pictures you feel that his head is too large,—­out of proportion to the body,—­but you do not perceive this when you see him.

“He bowed in a most courtly manner, and told me he was much obliged to me for coming to see him, then shook hands, and asked me to sit, and took a chair near me.

“There was a clock in sight, and I stayed but half an hour.  He talked every minute, and on all kinds of subjects:  of Dr. Bache, who was then at the head of the U.S.  Coast Survey; of Dr. Gould, who had recently returned from long years in South America; of the Washington Observatory and its director, Lieutenant Maury; of the Dudley Observatory, at Albany; of Sir George Airy, of the Greenwich Observatory; of Professor Enke’s comet reputation; of Argelander, who was there observing variable stars; of Mrs. Somerville and Goldschmidt, and of his brother.

“It was the period when the subject of admitting Kansas as a slave State was discussed—­he touched upon that; it was during the administration of President Buchanan, and he talked about that.