Woman in Science — Women as Inspirers and Collaborators in Science, Part 1

WOMEN AS INSPIRERS AND COLLABORATORS IN SCIENCE

One of the most interesting literary figures of the fifth century was Caius Apollinaris Sidonius, who, after holding a number of important civil offices, became the bishop of Clermont.

The most valuable of his extant works are his nine books of letters which are a mine of information respecting the history of his age and the manners, customs and ideals of his contemporaries.

In one of these letters, addressed to Hesperius, a young friend of his who exhibited special talent in polite literature, he expresses a sentiment which applies as well to the votary of science as to the man of letters.

Referring to the assistance which women had given to their husbands and friends in their studies, he conjures him to remember that in days of old it was the wont of Martia, Terentia, Calpurnia, Pudentilla and Rusticana to hold the lamp while their husbands, Hortensius, Cicero, Pliny, Apuleius and Symmachus, were reading and meditating.

[233] This picture of women as light-bearers to the great orators and philosophers just named is symbolic of them as the helpmates and inspirers of men in every field of human activity and in every age of the world's history.

Always and everywhere, when permitted to occupy the same social plane as men, women have been not only as lamps unto the feet and as lights unto the paths of their male compeers in the ordinary affairs of life, but have also been their guiding stars and ministering angels in the highest spheres of intellectual effort.

For nearly fifteen centuries St. Jerome has had the gratitude of the church for his masterly translation, known as the Vulgate, of the Hebrew Scriptures.

But, had it not been for his two noble friends, Paula and Eustochium, who were as eminent for their intellectual attainments as they were for their descent from the most distinguished families of Rome and Greece, there would have been no Vulgate.

For they were not only his inspirers in this colossal undertaking, but they were his active and zealous collaborators as well.

Dante and Petrarch are acclaimed as the morning stars of modern literature, but both of them owed their immortality to the inspiration of two pure-minded and noble-hearted women.

In the concluding paragraph of his Vita Nuova--the most beautiful love story ever written--Dante records his purpose to say of his inspirer, the gentle, gracious Beatrice Portinari, "what was never said of any woman."

The outcome of this exalted purpose was the Divina Commedia, the world's greatest literary masterpiece.

Petrarch, the father of humanism, is the first to give Laura de Noves credit for his attainments as a poet.

In one of his poems he sings: "Blest be the year, the month, the hour, the day, The season and the time, and point of space, And blest the beauteous country and the place Where first of two eyes I felt the sway."

Elsewhere in one of his prose dialogues with St. Augustine he declares, "Whatever you see in me, be it little or much, is due to her; nor would I ever have attained to this measure of name and fame unless she had cherished by those most noble influences that my feeble implanting of virtues which nature had placed in this breast."

[234] A no less remarkable inspirer, but in an entirely different sphere of activity, was the devout and spotless Italian maiden, Chiara Schiffi, better known as St. Clara.

She was, as is well known, the ardent cooperator of St. Francis Assisi in his great work of social and religious reform which has contributed so much toward the welfare of humanity.

But it is not generally known what an important part she had in this great undertaking, and how she sustained the Poverello during long hours of trial and hardship.

It was during these periods of care and struggle that we see how courageous and intrepid was "this woman who has always been represented as frail, emaciated, blanched like a flower of the cloister."

"She defended Francis not only against others but also against himself.

In those hours of dark discouragement which so often and so profoundly disturb the noblest souls and sterilize the grandest efforts, she was beside him to show the way.

When he doubted his mission and thought of fleeing to the heights of repose and solitary prayer, it was she who showed him the ripening harvest with no reapers to gather it in, men going astray with no shepherd to herd them, and drew him once again into the train of the Galilean, into the number of those who give their lives as a ransom for many."

[235] It is under the shade of the olive trees of St. Damian, with his sister-friend Clara caring for him, "that he composes his finest work, that which Ernest Renan called the most perfect utterance of modern religions sentiment, _The Canticle of the Sun_."

[236] This canticle, however, beautiful as it is, lacks, as has well been remarked, one strophe.

"If it was not upon Francis' lips, it was surely in his heart:" "Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara;

Thou hast made her silent, active, and sagacious, And, by her, thy light shines in our hearts."

[237] It was through the inspiration and influence of Theodora that the famous Church of St. Sophia, that matchless poem in marble and gold, that imperishable monument to the glory of the true God, came into existence.

It was through her that Justinian conceived the idea of those _Pandects_ and _Institutes_ which constitute the greatest glory of his reign, and which are the basis of the _Code Napoleon_ and of all modern jurisprudence.

It was to Vittoria Colonna that Michaelangelo dedicated many of the most exquisite productions of his peerless genius.

"He saw," as has been said, "with her eyes and acted by her inspiration."

Almost every one of Chopin's compositions was inspired by women, and a large proportion of them are dedicated to them.

The same may be said of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Beethoven, Weber, Schumann and other illustrious composers.

All these sons of genius believed with Castiglione that "all inspiration must come from woman;" that she had been expressly created and sent into the world to inspire them with intelligence and creative power.

M.

Claviere declares that "There is hardly a philosopher or a poet of the sixteenth century whose pages are not illuminated or gladdened by the smile of some high-born lady."

[238] What the brilliant Frenchman says of the influence of woman on the poets and philosophers of a single century could with equal truth be said of the poets and philosophers of every century from Anacreon and Plato to the present day.

And, still more, it can be predicated of woman's inspiration and influence in every department of intellectual effort, in art and architecture, in music and literature, in science in all its departments, whether deductive or inductive.

It has been well said, "Were history to be rewritten, with due regard to women's share in it, many small causes, heretofore disregarded, would be found fully to explain great and unlooked-for results....

For it is not in outward facts, nor great names, nor noisy deeds, nor genealogies of crowned heads, nor in tragic loves, nor ambitious or striking heroism, nor crime, that we find proofs of the constant and secret working whereby woman most effectually asserts herself.

Certainly she has played her part in the outward and visible history of the world, but in that history which is told and written, which is buried in archives and revivified in books, woman's part is always small when set beside that of her companion, man.

She contributes but little, and at this she may surely rejoice, to the tales of battles and treaties of successions and alliances, of violence, fraud, suspicions and hatreds.

But if the inward history of human affairs could be described as fully as the outward facts; if the story of the family could be told together with the story of the nation; if human thoughts could with certainty be divined from human deeds, then the chief figure in this history of sentiment and morals would certainly be that of Woman the Inspirer."

[239] This same statement would hold equally good if applied to the part taken by women in the history of science.

Their achievements have, in most cases, been so overshadowed by those of men that their work has been usually regarded as a negligible quantity.

But when one considers the mainsprings of actions, and examines the silent undercurrents which escape the notice of the superficial observer, one finds, as in social and political history, that the most important scientific investigations are often conducted, and the most momentous discoveries are made, in consequence of the promptings of some devoted woman friend, or in virtue of the still, small voice of a cherished wife, or sister, who prefers to remain in the background in order that all the glory of achievement may redound to the man.

There have been, it may safely be asserted, few really eminent men in science, as there have been few really eminent men in art or letters, or in the great reform and religious movements of the world, who have not been assisted by some woman light-bearer, as were Hortensius by Martia, Tully by Terentia and Pliny by Calpurnia.

There have been few that have not, during hours of doubt and discouragement, been sustained and stimulated as was Francis by Clara, and Jerome by Paula and Eustochium.

And there have been still fewer who have not had, like Petrarch and Dante, their Laura or their Beatrice of whom each could say: "This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth, And urges me to see the glorious goal: This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng."

In the preceding chapters we have had notable examples of women whose beneficent influence and cooperation have enabled distinguished men of science to achieve results that would otherwise have been impossible.

Among these--to mention only a few--were Mme.

Lavoisier and Mme.

Curie in chemistry, Mme.

Lapaute and Miss Herschel in astronomy, Mrs. Agassiz and Mme.

Coudreau in natural science and exploration, Mme.

Schliemann and Mme.

Dieulafoy in archaeology.

One of the most illustrious women inspirers of France was Catherine de Parthenay, who, after attaining womanhood, became the brilliant Princess de Rohan, and was recognized as one of the most learned and most remarkable women of the sixteenth century.

As a young girl she exhibited rare intelligence and displayed special aptitude for the exact sciences.

For this reason her mother saw to it that her child had the benefit of instruction under the ablest masters that could be secured.

The most noted of these was Francois Viete, the learned French mathematician, who is justly regarded as the father of modern algebra.

In his day, especially in the higher classes of society, the education given to women was often more thorough than that afforded to men.

For this reason, too, women not infrequently became distinguished in astronomy, which was then usually known under the name of astrology.

Viete, in initiating his gifted pupil into the principles of this science, became himself so enthusiastic a student of astronomy that he determined to prepare an elaborate work on the subject--something on the plan of the _Almagest_ of Ptolemy--a work which he designated _Harmonicum Celeste_.

In order that the instruction given his pupil might not be lacking in precision, Viete wrote out, with the most scrupulous care, the lessons designed for her benefit.

The manuscripts containing these lessons were long preserved among the family archives, but nearly all of them were unfortunately consigned to the flames during the French Revolution in 1793. No one was more interested in Viete's mathematical researches--those researches which have rendered him so famous in the history of science--than was the Princess de Rohan.

The former pupil was the first to receive notice of her distinguished master's discoveries and the first to congratulate him on his success.

It was to this cherished pupil, who always remained his friend and benefactress, that Viete dedicated his important work on mathematical analysis entitled _In Artem Analyticam Isagoge_.

The words of the dedication are a tribute to the learning and the genius of the pupil as well as an expression of the gratitude of the teacher.

It reads as follows: "It is to you especially, august daughter of Melusine, that I am indebted for my proficiency in mathematics, to attain which I was encouraged by your love for this science, as well as your great knowledge of it, and by your mastery of all other sciences, which one cannot too much admire in a person of your noble lineage."

[240] More interesting, and at the same time more pathetic, were the relations of an Italian nun, Sister Maria Celeste, and the man whom Byron so happily designates as "The starry Galileo, with his woes."

Sister Celeste, who was a Franciscan nun in the convent of St. Matthew, in Arcetri, was the great astronomer's eldest and favorite daughter.

They were greatly attached to each other, and the gentle religieuse was not only her father's confidante and consoler in the hours of trial and affliction, but was also his inspirer and ever-vigilant guardian angel.

She watched over him, not as a daughter over a father, but as a mother watches over an only son.

[241] All this is beautifully exhibited in her one hundred and twenty-four letters which were published in 1891 for the first time.

A few of these letters, it is true, were published as early as 1852 by Alberi, in his edition of the complete works of Galileo, and others were given to the press at subsequent dates; but the world had to wait more than two and a half centuries for a complete collection of all the known letters of this remarkable daughter of an illustrious sire.

These documents are precious for the insight they give into the sterling character of a noble woman, but they are beyond price as sources of information respecting the tenderly affectionate relations which existed between her and one of the foremost men of science, not only of his own age, but of all time.

They show how he made her his confidante in all his undertakings, and how she was his amanuensis, his counselor, his inspirer; how her love was an incentive to the work that won for him undying fame; how she was his support and comfort when suffering from the jealousy of rivals or the enmity of those who were opposed to his teachings.

These letters cover a period of nearly eleven years--the most momentous years of her father's busy and troubled life.

Now playful, quaint, elfish, then serious, vivid, confidential, they show that the writer's intelligence was as rare as her nature was loyal and affectionate.

At times she half-apologizes for the length of a letter, "but you must remember," she adds in excuse, "that I must put into this paper everything that I should chatter to you in a week."

No daughter was ever prouder of her father or loved him with a more abounding love.

"I pride myself," she says, "that I love and revere my dearest father more, by far, than others love their fathers, and I clearly perceive that, in return, he far surpasses the greater part of other fathers in the love which he has for me, his loved daughter."

When he was ill she prepared dishes and confections that she knew would tempt his appetite.

But she was not satisfied with looking after the welfare of his body, for she took occasion to send with the cakes and preserved fruits a sermonette for the benefit of his soul.

An extract from one of her letters gives an insight into the character of this devoted daughter, who, Galileo says in a letter to his friend, Elia Diodati, "was a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness and most tenderly attached to me."

"Of the preserved citron you ordered," she writes him on the nineteenth of December, 1625, "I have only been able to do a small quantity.

I

feared the citrons were too shriveled for preserving, and so they proved.

I send two baked pears for these days of vigil.

But the greatest treat of all I send you is a rose, which ought to please you extremely, seeing what a rarity it is at this season.

And with the rose you must accept its thorns, which represent the bitter passion of Our Lord, while the green leaves represent the hope we may entertain that, through the same sacred passion, we, having passed through the darkness of this short winter of our mortal life, may attain to the brightness and felicity of an eternal spring in heaven, which may our gracious God grant us through His mercy."

[242] She always insists upon his keeping her fully informed about his studies and discoveries.

She is particular, also, about receiving without delay copies of his latest publications.

"I beg you," she writes in one of her letters, "to be so kind as to send me that book of yours which has just been published, _Il Saggiatore_, so that I may read it; for I have a great desire to see it."

On another occasion, after his difficulties with the Holy Office, when she fancies her father is not keeping her fully informed about the subject matter of his writings, she implores him to tell her on what topic he is engaged, "if," she archly adds, "it be something I can understand and you are not afraid that I will blab."

And on still another occasion Sister Celeste reminds her father of a promise of his to send her a small telescope.

From this we should infer that she desired to repeat the observations on the heavenly bodies that had created such a sensation in the learned world, and which had given occasion for such acrimonious controversy.

In one of her earlier letters Sister Celeste calls her father's attention to a promise of his to spend an afternoon with her and her sister Arcangela, also a nun in the same convent.

And, referring to one of the regulations of the Franciscan cloister, she playfully observes: "You will be able to sup in the parlor, since the excommunication is for the table cloth"--O Sister Celeste!

--"and not for the meats thereon."

What would one not give for a stenographic report of the conversations held that afternoon in the convent garden of Arcetri, as father and daughters leisurely strolled through the peaceful enclosure, all quite oblivious of the fleeting hours?

How interesting would be a faithful record of the confidences exchanged at the frugal meal in the evening in the humble parlor of S. Matteo!

We would willingly exchange many of the famous _Dialoghi di Galileo Galilei_ for a verbatim report of what passed between Sister Celeste and the father whom she so idolized.

[243] Judging from her letters, she had many questions to ask him about his studies, his experiments, his discoveries, his books, as well as about more personal and domestic matters.

Although there is no documentary proof of the fact, yet there is every reason to believe that Galileo had taken personal charge of the education of this, his favorite daughter.

She shared his taste for science and inherited not a little of his genius.

Such being the case, we may well believe that a faithful account of their conversations of that day would be not only of surpassing interest, but would also throw a flood of light on many questions now ill understood.

They would certainly tend to fill up the numerous lacunae caused by the disappearance of the letters of Galileo, which he wrote in answer to those of his ever-cherished daughter.

[244] They would also show more clearly than any facts now available what an unbounded influence the gentle nun had over the greatest intellect of his time, and would, more clearly than anything in her correspondence, exhibit Sister Celeste as the efficient co-worker and the abiding inspirer of the father of modern physics and astronomy.

But, although we have no record of this soul-communion between father and daughter on the occasion in question; although we are deprived of the invaluable letters which he wrote in reply to hers, we are, nevertheless, from the evidence at hand, justified in regarding this unique pair as being ever one in heart, aspirations and ideals, and comparable in their mutual influence on each other with any of those famous men and women who, through achievement on the one side and inspiration and collaboration on the other, have ever been recognized as the greatest benefactors of their race.

One of Galileo's countrymen, G. B.

Clemente de Nelli, was right when he declared that, had it not been for the assistance and consolation which he received from Sister Celeste, Galileo would have succumbed to the blows that were showered upon him during the most trying part of his career.

An indication of this is given in one of the letters written by Sister Celeste in the last year of her life.

While in a fit of despondency and imagining his friends had forgotten him, Galileo, in a moment of bitterness, wrote in a letter to his daughter: "My name is erased from the book of the living."

"Nay," came at once Sister Celeste's cheering reply, "say not that your name is struck _de libro viventium_, for it is not so; neither in the greater part of the world nor in your own country.

Indeed, it seems to me that, if for a brief moment your name and fame were clouded, they are now restored to greater brightness, at which I am much astonished, for I know that generally _Nemo propheta acceptus est in patria sua_.

I am afraid, however, if I begin quoting Latin, I shall fall into some barbarism.

But, of a truth, you are loved and esteemed here more than ever."

[245] How much Sister Celeste was to her father in every way was not known until after her premature death in her thirty-fourth year.

He was never the same man afterward.

Disconsolate and broken, he fancied he heard the voice of the daughter he so fondly loved resounding through the house.

Brooding over his great loss, the heart-broken old man writes to a friend in words of infinite pathos, "_Mi sento continuamente chiamare della mia diletta figlioula_--I continually hear myself called by my dearly beloved daughter."

The eighth of January, 1642, he answered her call and went to join her in a better world.

Two other noted investigators, one of them a contemporary of Galileo, owed much to the inspiration and encouragement which they received from women.

These were Descartes and Leibnitz.

And the women that had the most influence on them were representatives of royal families, who were famous in their day for their love and knowledge and the extent of their intellectual attainments.

One of the most noted of these was Elizabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine.

She was the favorite pupil of Descartes, and it was to her that he dedicated his great work, _Principia Philosophiae_.

She, he declared, understood him better than any one else he had ever met, for "in her alone were united those generally separated talents for metaphysics and for mathematics which are so characteristically operative in the Cartesian system."

[246] To this earnest student who was always absorbed in the mysteries of metaphysics and the problems of geometry, Descartes could refuse nothing.

When distance separated them he continued his instructions by correspondence.

One of the results of this correspondence was his treatise on _Passions de l'Ame_, in which he develops certain ethical views suggested by the _Vita Beata_ of Seneca.

Another distinguished pupil of Descartes who exercised a marked influence over him was the celebrated daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christine of Sweden.

A mistress of many languages and an ardent votary of science, she was a munificent patron of scientific men, a great number of whom she had attracted to her court.

The most distinguished of these was Descartes, to whom she was deeply attached, and with whom she had planned great things for science in Sweden, when his career was cut short by a premature death.

Not the least influence on the intellectual life of Leibnitz was Sophia Charlotte, Queen of Prussia and mother of Frederick the Great.

She was the niece of Descartes' illustrious friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and, as the pupil of Leibnitz, quite as gloriously associated as had been her aunt with the father of Cartesianism.

Leibnitz was as distinguished by genius as his royal pupil was by birth.

Besides being eminent as a philosopher and a statesman, he shared with Newton the honor of discovering the calculus.

Huxley pronounced him "a man of science, in the modern sense, of the first rank," while the King of Prussia declared of him, "He represents in himself a whole academy."

Through the cooperation of Sophia Charlotte he founded the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

For her he wrote one of the most notable of his productions--his famed _Theodicy_.

It would be difficult to estimate the influence of this learned queen on Leibnitz, but it was undoubtedly greater than any other single influence whatever.

Her death was the greatest loss he ever suffered, and when she was no more, the beautiful Berlin suburb, Charlottenburg--named after her--where he had been so happy in reading and philosophizing with his illustrious pupil, lost all attraction for him.

A more striking illustration of woman's helpfulness is afforded in the case of Francois Huber, the celebrated Swiss naturalist.

Although blind from his seventeenth year, he was able to carry on researches requiring the keenest eyesight and the closest observation.

This he was able to do through the affectionate cooperation of his devoted wife, Marie Aimee.

When her friends tried to dissuade her from marrying Huber, to whom she had been engaged for some time, saying he had become blind, her reply was worthy of her generous and noble nature: "He then needs me more than ever."

During the forty years of their married life her tenderness and devotion to her husband were as unfailing as they were inspiring.

He worked through the eyes and hands of his wife as if they were his own.

She was his reader, his observer, his secretary, his enthusiastic collaborator in all those investigations that have rendered him so famous.

The blind man devised the experiments to be made, and the quick-witted wife executed them and recorded the observations which supplied the material for his epoch-making work on bees, entitled _Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles_.

So accurate are his descriptions of the habits of the winged creatures, to the study of which he devoted the best years of his life, that one would think his great work was the production, not of a man who had been blind for a quarter of a century, when he wrote it, but of one who was gifted with exceptional keenness of vision and powers of observation.

"As long as she lived," exclaimed the great naturalist after his trusty Aimee's death, "I was not sensible of the misfortune of being blind."

Nay, more.

During her lifetime, when, though sightless, he was always so happy in his work, he went so far as to aver that he would be miserable were he to recover his eyesight.

"I should not know," he declared, "to what an extent a person in my condition could be beloved.

Besides, to me, my wife is always young, fresh and pretty, which is no light matter."

He could truly say of her, as Wordsworth said of his sister Dorothy, "She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, ...

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