Queen Of Science - Somerville Mary Canongate Classics

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Fairfax.’

       FOUR

      Edinburgh Supper Parties – Tour in the Highlands – Mutiny in the Fleet – Battle of Camperdown

      [By this time my mother was grown up, and extremely pretty. All those who knew her speak of her rare and delicate beauty, both of face and figure. They called her the ‘Rose of Jedwood.’ She kept her beauty to the last day of her life, and was a beautiful old woman, as she had been a lovely young one. She used to say, laughing, that ‘it was very hard no one ever thought of painting her portrait so long as she was young and pretty.’ After she became celebrated, various likenesses were taken of her, by far the best of which are a beautiful bust, modelled at Rome in 1844 by Mr Lawrence Macdonald°, and a crayon drawing by Mr James Swinton°, done in London in 1848. My mother always looked considerably younger than her age; even at ninety, she looked younger than some who were her juniors by several years. This was owing, no doubt, principally to her being small and delicate in face and figure, but also, I think, to the extreme youthfulness and freshness of both her heart and mind, neither of which ever grew old. It certainly was not due to a youthful style of dress, for she had perfect taste in such matters, as well as in other things; and although no one spent less thought or money on it than she, my mother was at all times both neatly and becomingly dressed. She never was careless; and her room, her papers, and all that belonged to her were invariably in the most beautiful order. My mother’s recollections of this period of her life are as follows:—]

      [Some of the commentary on Mary Somerville’s appearance is given in the drafts in her own words: 1D, 42: I was now a very pretty girl and much admired, though my mother used to say that her family were like pigs, pretty when young but grew uglier every day. From shyness or timidity I offended one of the acquaintance I had made, for on going to return their visit when at the door I had not the courage to ring the bell and announce myself, but came home vexed and could not even make an apology when we met. I was old enough by this time to be invited with my mother to dinner parties. On one occasion the conversation turned upon an officer who had distinguished himself, and someone asked me if I knew him, I replied very little, I have merely been introduced to him. Whereupon Mr Douglas of Cavers [?] a gentlemanly old man turned sharply round to me and said, ‘Young lady you forget the respect due to your sex. You cannot be presented to any man except a sovereign, or a prince of royal blood. All other men, be their age or rank what it may, are presented to you.’ I blushed scarlet but I liked and remembered the lesson.]

      [1D, 37: My teeth were very good, but to my infinite dismay I discovered that a front one was beginning to spoil; as there were no false teeth at that time I expected soon to be toothless and vexed myself about it but it was trifling and remained the same for many years – so much for personal vanity.]

      [1D, 44: It frequently happened that Madam Billington° and other celebrated singers came to Edinburgh for a short time and sang in the Assembly rooms. On one of these occasions Miss Wardlaw, an elderly maiden lady, asked me to go with her, saying she was to dine out but that she would meet me in the lobby at a certain hour. So I went, sent away my chair and sat down. The crowd was great; numbers of my acquaintances passed and said, ‘You are waiting for your chaperone.’ At last the room was full and several pieces of music had been performed when a gentleman came out for a lady’s shawl and was surprised to see me quite alone. I said that I was waiting for Miss Wardlaw. ‘She has been in the room more than an hour, let me take you to her.’ ‘By no means,’ I said, ‘I have not courage to go into the room, but do me the kindness to call a chair.’ So I went home. I was not in the room next day when Miss Wardlaw came to make an apology but when I met her she said, ‘I thought your mother would have torn my eyes out, she was so angry; the dinner party was sooner over than I expected so I went into the room and forgot you altogether.’

      There was a great deal of beauty in Edinburgh at that time but no one was to be compared with Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of the Duke of Argyle, married to Colonel John Campbell of Shawfield who was as handsome for a man as she was for a woman. I do not remember ever having seen a more distinguished or beautiful woman. She knew it and sometimes dressed fantastically but she was by no means without talent. Dress was far less expensive then than it is now, for it was not thought necessary to appear in a different dress every evening. Had that been the case, I could not have gone into society at all. My morning dresses, which I made myself from patterns lent to me by my friends, consisted of white cambric muslin or printed cotton; at dinner parties I wore India muslin and at balls India muslin over white or rose colour satin, and a fall of broad and very fine French lace round the bosom. I usually had my hair plain but feathers were much in fashion and I cannot help laughing as I write to think that I sometimes appeared with three high ostriches’ feathers like the Prince of Wales’s crest above my forehead either all white or with a scarlet one in the middle. But such was the mode.]

      [1D, 45 verso: I was intimate in the family of a Mrs Wilson, a widow lady who had a son and three daughters, one remarkably pretty, all agreeable and very gay, going out a great deal. Mrs Wilson was a sensible good woman. She had what I believe is called a wall eye: at least it was white and very ugly. Her family were much attached to her, and insisted on having her portrait by an artist who was capricious but very clever. On one occasion when asked to paint a lady’s portrait he said yellow paint was so expensive that he could not afford to do it at the ordinary price. When he saw Mrs Wilson he said he would only paint her in profile. She said, ‘My children love me notwithstanding my wall eye and the picture must be done such as I am or not at all.’ The girls and I used to walk together sometimes accompanied by their brother who was some years older than any of us and had been a student at the University of Glasgow. He had been a good Greek and Latin scholar, wrote pretty verses, was very clever and very eccentric. He disappeared occasionally; he was fond of sailing and I believe he made a voyage as a common sailor; he once joined a company of strolling players in Ireland.

      In one of his excursions he was living at a small inn at Windermere when two gentlemen and pretty girl daughter of one of them arrived. The landlady was in distress for want of a waiter, and Wilson° offered to wait on them. While at dinner one of the gentlemen quoted a Latin author, when Wilson said you are mistaken it is so and so – the gentleman said nothing at the time, but took an opportunity before going away to tell him he had suspected he was acting a part.

      ‘Oh,’ said Wilson, ‘if you knew him as well as I do, you would have reason to say so.’

      When I went to London, I lost sight of my old companion, and was not a little amused, but by no means surprised, to hear that he was elected professor of moral philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He was much esteemed and though chiefly occupied with his lectures, he published the Isle of Palms and other poems. I think he also wrote in Blackwood’s Magazine.]

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