LETTER FROM LORD BROUGHAM—WRITES "MECHANISM OF THE HEAVENS"—ANECDOTE OF THE ROMAN IMPROVISATRICE—LETTERS FROM SIR JOHN HERSCHEL AND PROFESSOR WHEWELL—ELECTED HON. MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY—NOTICE IN THE ACADÉMIE DES SCIENCES, AND LETTER FROM M. BIOT—PENSION—LETTER FROM SIR ROBERT PEEL—BEGINS TO WRITE ON THE CONNECTION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES—VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE—LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR SEDGWICK AND LAPLACE.
After my mother's return home my father received the following letter from Lord Brougham, which very importantly influenced the further course of my mother's life. It is dated March 27th, 1827:—
LETTER FROM LORD BROUGHAM TO DR. SOMERVILLE.
My dear Sir,
I fear you will think me very daring for the design I have formed against Mrs. Somerville, and still more for making you my advocate with her; through whom I have every hope of prevailing. There will be sent to you a prospectus, rules, and a preliminary treatise of our Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge, and I assure you I speak without any flattery when I say that of the two subjects which I find it most difficult to see the chance of executing, there is one, which—unless Mrs. Somerville will undertake—none else can, and it must be left undone, though about the most interesting of the whole, I mean an account of the Mécanique Céleste; the other is an account of the Principia, which I have some hopes of at Cambridge. The kind of thing wanted is such a description of that divine work as will both explain to the unlearned the sort of thing it is—the plan, the vast merit, the wonderful truths unfolded or methodized—and the calculus by which all this is accomplished, and will also give a somewhat deeper insight to the uninitiated. Two treatises would do this. No one without trying it can conceive how far we may carry ignorant readers into an understanding of the depths of science, and our treatises have about 100 to 800 pages of space each, so that one might give the more popular view, and another the analytical abstracts and illustrations. In England there are now not twenty people who know this great work, except by name; and not a hundred who know it even by name. My firm belief is that Mrs. Somerville could add two cyphers to each of those figures. Will you be my counsel in this suit? Of course our names are concealed, and no one of our council but myself needs to know it.
Yours ever most truly,
H. Brougham.
My mother in alluding to the above says:—
This letter surprised me beyond expression. I thought Lord Brougham must have been mistaken with regard to my acquirements, and naturally concluded that my self-acquired knowledge was so far inferior to that of the men who had been educated in our universities that it would be the height of presumption to attempt to write on such a subject or indeed on any other. A few days after this Lord Brougham came to Chelsea himself, and Somerville joined with him in urging me at least to make the attempt. I said, "Lord Brougham, you must be aware that the work in question never can be popularized, since the student must at least know something of the differential and integral calculi, and as a preliminary step I should have to prove various problems in physical mechanics and astronomy. Besides, La Place never gives diagrams or figures, because they are not necessary to persons versed in the calculus, but they would be indispensable in a work such as you wish me to write. I am afraid I am incapable of such a task: but as you both wish it so much, I shall do my very best upon condition of secrecy, and that if I fail the manuscript shall be put into the fire." Thus suddenly and unexpectedly the whole character and course of my future life was changed.
I rose early and made such arrangements with regard to my children and family affairs that I had time to write afterwards; not, however, without many interruptions. A man can always command his time under the plea of business, a woman is not allowed any such excuse. At Chelsea I was always supposed to be at home, and as my friends and acquaintances came so far out of their way on purpose to see me, it would have been unkind and ungenerous not to receive them. Nevertheless, I was sometimes annoyed when in the midst of a difficult problem some one would enter and say, "I have come to spend a few hours with you." However, I learnt by habit to leave a subject and resume it again at once, like putting a mark into a book I might be reading; this was the more necessary as there was no fire-place in my little room, and I had to write in the drawing-room in winter. Frequently I hid my papers as soon as the bell announced a visitor, lest anyone should discover my secret.