ht. To the last her intellect remained perfectly unclouded;
her affection for those she loved, and her sympathy for all living
beings, as fervent as ever; nor did her ardent desire for and belief
in the ultimate religious and moral improvement of mankind diminish.
She always retained her habit of study, and that pursuit, in which
she had attained such excellence and which was always the most
congenial to her,--Mathematics--delighted and amused her to the end.
Her last occupations, continued to the actual day of her death, were
the revision and completion of a treatise, which she had written
years before, on the "Theory of Differences" (with diagrams
exquisitely drawn), and the study of a book on Quaternions. Though
too religious to fear death, she dreaded outliving her intellectual
powers, and it was with intense delight that she pursued her
intricate calculations after her ninetieth and ninety-first years,
and repeatedly told me how she rejoiced to find that she had the
same readiness and facility in comprehending and developing these
extremely difficult formulae which she possessed when young. Often,
also, she said how grateful she was to the Almighty Father who had
allowed her to retain her faculties unimpaired to so great an age.
God was indeed loving and merciful to her; not only did He spare her
this calamity, but also the weary trial of long-continued illness.
In health of body and vigour of mind, having lived far beyond the
usual span of human life, He called her to Himself. For her Death
lost all its terrors. Her pure spirit passed away so gently that
those around her scarcely perceived when she left them. It was the
beautiful and painless close of a noble and a happy life.
My mother died in sleep on the morning of the 29th Nov., 1872. Her
remains rest in the English Campo Santo of Naples.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: "Darwinism in Morals," &c.]
THE END.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Personal Recollections, from Early
Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville, by Mary Somerville
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS ***
***** This file should be named 27747.txt or 27747.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/7/4/27747/
Produced by Jane Hyland, Eric Hutton, David Garcia and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.n
|