ong after the marriage of her brother was "greatly
exaggerated"--she lived to be ninety-eight, a century lacking two years!
Her mind was bright to the last--when ninety she sang at a concert given
for the benefit of an old ladies' home. At ninety-six she danced a
minuet with the King of Prussia, and requested that worthy not to
introduce her as "the woman astronomer, because, you know, I was only
the assistant of my brother!" William Herschel died in his eighty-fourth
year, with his fame at full, honored, respected, beloved.

Sir John Herschel, his son, was worthy to be called the son of his
father. He was an active worker in the field of science--a strong, yet
gentle man, with no jealousy nor whim in his nature. "His life was full
of the docility of a sage and the innocence of a child."

John Herschel died at Collingwood, May Eleventh, Eighteen Hundred
Seventy-one, and his dust is now resting in Westminster Abbey, close by
the grave of England's famous scholar, Sir Isaac Newton.

[Illustration: CHARLES DARWIN]

CHARLES DARWIN

I feel most deeply that this whole question of Creation is too
profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the
mind of Newton! Let each man hope and believe what he can.

--_Charles Darwin to Asa Gray_

None have fought better, and none have been more fortunate, than
Charles Darwin. He found a great truth trodden underfoot, reviled
by bigots, and ridiculed by all the world; he lived long enough to
see it, chiefly by his own efforts, irrefragably established in
science, inseparably incorporated into the common thoughts of men.
What shall a man desire more than this?

--_Thomas Huxley, Address, April Twenty-seventh, Eighteen Hundred
Eighty-two_

CHARLES DARWIN

Evolution is at work everywhere, even in the matter of jokes. Once
in the House of Commons, Benjamin Disraeli, who prided himself on his
fine scholarship as well as on his Hyperion curl, interrupted a speaker
and corrected him on a matter of history.

"I would rather be a gentleman than a scholar!" the man replied. "My
friend is seldom either," came the quick response.

When Thomas Brackett Reed was Speaker of the House of Representatives, a
member once took exception to a ruling of the "Czar," and having in mind
Reed's supposed Presidential aspirations closed his protests with the
thrust, "I would rather be right than President." "The gent