THE LIFE STORY OF PIERRE CURIE
[INTRODUCTION]
BY MRS. WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY
Every little while a man or a woman is born to serve in some big way. Such a one surely is Marie Curie. Her discovery of radium has advanced science, relieved human suffering and enriched the world. The spirit in which she has done her work has challenged the minds and souls of men.
One morning in the spring of 1898, when the United States was going to war with Spain, Madame Curie stepped forth from a crude shack on the outskirts of Paris, with the greatest secret of the century literally in the palm of her hand.
It was one of the silent, unheralded great moments in the world's history.
The discovery which had become a fact that morning was no accident. It was a triumph over hardship and doubting men. It represented years of patient labor. Madame Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, had wrested from Mother Earth one of her most priceless secrets.
I have been asked to tell why I undertook the Marie Curie Radium Campaign and how I persuaded Madame Curie to write this book.
It is with much hesitancy that I venture to write a preface to this book. She once chided me, in her gentle way, for an article in which I had stated facts with some feeling—although the facts praised her. "In science," she said, "we should be interested in things, not persons."
Madame Curie is the most modest of women. It is only after long persuasion that she has consented to record the autobiographical notes contained in this book. Still, so much has been left unsaid, uninterpreted, that I feel an obligation to say a word toward a fuller understanding of this great and noble character.