tain period seem to
crystallise, and lose the faculty of comprehending and accepting new
ideas and theories; thus remaining at last as far behind, as they were
once in advance of public opinion. Not so my mother, who was ever ready
to hail joyfully any new idea or theory, and to give it honest
attention, even if it were at variance with her former convictions. This
quality she never lost, and it enabled her to sympathise with the
younger generation of philosophers, as she had done with their
predecessors, her own contemporaries.

Although her favourite pursuit, and the one for which she had decidedly
most aptitude, was mathematics; yet there were few subjects in which she
did not take interest, whether in science or literature, philosophy or
politics. She was passionately fond of poetry, her especial favourites
being Shakespeare and Dante, and also the great Greek dramatists, whose
tragedies she read fluently in the original, being a good classical
scholar. She was very fond of music, and devoted much time to it in her
youth, and she painted from nature with considerable taste. The latter
was, perhaps, the recreation in which she most delighted, from the
opportunity it afforded her of contemplating the wonderful beauty of the
world, which was a never-failing source of intense enjoyment to her,
whether she watched the changing effects of light and shade on her
favourite Roman Campagna, or gazed, enchanted, on the gorgeous sunsets
on the bay of Naples, as she witnessed them from her much-loved
Sorrento, where she passed the last summers of her life. All things fair
were a joy to her--the flowers we brought her from our rambles, the
sea-weeds, the wild birds she saw, all interested and pleased her.
Everything in nature spoke to her of that great God who created all
things, the grand and sublimely beautiful as well as the exquisite
loveliness of minute objects. Above all, in the laws which science
unveils step by step, she found ever renewed motives for the love and
adoration of their Author and Sustainer. This fervour of religious
feeling accompanied her through life, and very early she shook off all
that was dark and narrow in the creed of her first instructors for a
purer and a happier faith.

It would be almost incredible were I to describe how much my mother
contrived to do in the course of the day. When my sister and I were
small children, although busily engaged in writing for the press, she
used to teach us for th