Part 3

She was a frequent attendant at the meetings of both the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Astronomical Association, and always an interested one. Occasionally she spoke; but she had no liking for speaking in public, nor indeed was she well suited for it.

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A complete list of Agnes Clerke’s papers it would be difficult to compile. They were, in truth, innumerable. Her articles on astronomers for the Dictionary of National Biography--out of the sixty-six volumes which constitute this great work there are only eleven to which she did not contribute,--articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica, and for other encyclopædias were many, and all of them were models of painstaking inquiry and of clear, concise statement. The more important of these, that on Laplace in the Encyclopædia Britannica, for instance, are of lasting interest and value.

Her larger works are:--

History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century (4 editions).

The System of the Stars.

Familiar Studies in Homer.

The Herschels and Modern Astronomy.

Concise History of Astronomy.

Modern Cosmogonies.

Problems in Astrophysics.

I venture to think that the History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century is the most important of her works. It is admirable in its completeness of references, its wide inclusiveness, and in its lucidity. It deserves to live, and it assuredly will live--the invaluable continuation of Grant’s fine work. The System of the Stars and the Problems in Astrophysics are works of a different order. Treasuries of knowledge and of suggestion they certainly are.

The Homeric Studies, except in one chapter, are not specially astronomical; but they are evidence of width of culture and of wide intellectual interest, and are full of delightful touches of wit and of humour.

The Herschels is excellent and agreeable biographical reading. Three lives are vividly set forth in little more than two hundred octavo pages.

It seems to me a mistake to regard Agnes Clerke’s smaller works as of less importance than her larger ones.

I have said that I consider the History her greatest work. But, in some respects, I venture to think that her greatest achievement is Modern Cosmogonies. I claim for this book that it is not only a history, but a work of philosophical thinking and of imaginative insight of a very high order.

Its small size is an accident. It is a work essentially great. In these superbly brilliant sketches Agnes Clerke’s style is at its best. Usually, it suffers from effort; the lucidity may be laboured, and the perpetual antithesis may sometimes be wearying. I have spoken of her laboriousness in study and in work, and can adorn the tale by relating what was surely a very remarkable performance. She had at the time no knowledge of Portuguese, but as part of her preparation for an article in the Edinburgh Review “Don Sebastian and his Personators,” in six weeks she not only acquired considerable knowledge of the language, but read the whole of the Lusiad in the original!

Le Style, c’est l’homme; is it surprising that the physical efforts she made I fear only too often, tended to render her writing laboured at times?

But the writing in Modern Cosmogonies, good as it is, is a small matter compared with the masterly grasp of, I may say, all things, and of their inter-relations, which the work reveals. And where else is shown in recent philosophical writing such vision and faculty divine for seizing and pointing out the reasonable spiritual clues, set in what we call Nature,--clues helping to sustainment of soul in the midst of the majestic mysteries surrounding us?

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No sketch of Agnes Clerke would be complete without reference to her love of music. To her music was in the highest sense of the term a recreation. She turned to it for very life. Her piano-playing was truly musicianly, and her repertory was large. Perhaps on the whole, her playing was at its best in rendering Chopin. As an accompanist she excelled. Her teachers were,--in Dublin, Miss Flynn; in Florence, Buonamici.

I record here the complete story of her introduction to Liszt. One moonlight night in the spring of either 1868 or 1869, Mrs. Clerke and her daughters rambling about Rome were fascinated by such piano-playing as they had never before heard, and they stopped outside the open window of the villa and listened spellbound until the unknown Maestro had finished and came to the window to look out upon the night. Then the enthusiasm of the hearers overcame conventionality, and they gave free expression to their admiration; and the fifth act of the little drama was that Liszt invited his listeners to enter, promising to play again on condition that Agnes first played for him, which I believe she did.

Remarkable as were the intellectual powers of Agnes Clerke, her moral endowments were equally so. It was a question we frequently debated--the influence of character on work; and as I write the memory of certain talks is hauntingly present. As is the heart, is the work. The best work is and must be associated with lofty character. It was so with Agnes Clerke. No purer, loftier, and yet sweetly unselfish and human soul has lived. She was so incapable of meanness that she even incurred danger as a historian in crediting too readily all workers with her own high ideals.

As a friend and companion she was faithful and true, and full of charm; and without her the world to those who had her friendship seems darkened and empty.

But her mission, I must believe, was accomplished. For twenty years she had been to modern Astronomy an admirable historian, and had kept before working astronomers clear charts, so to speak, of what was being done, and of what should and might be done. In so doing she rendered splendid service, and inaugurated a kind of work which must be more and more needed--a kind of work which not only advances Astronomy, but promotes a universal brotherhood and co-operation, golden indeed.

Agnes Clerke’s death comes as a shock to many. A cold--I fear not sufficiently nursed at first--led to pneumonia and complications, and in spite of all that devoted love and skill could do, she passed gently to the next life, peaceful and fully conscious almost to the last, on the morning of January 20, 1907.

Note.--The portrait is from a photograph taken by Mendelssohn in 1895.

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