H. S. Mendelssohn.

AGNES MARY CLERKE.

Lady Huggins in her original draftof the obituary notice of my sisterAgnes, which appeared in the AstrophysicalJournal, included somewords of personal appreciation andof reference to her family whichwere omitted from the copy sentfor publication, as being, possibly,somewhat beyond the scope of apurely scientific journal. At myrequest Lady Huggins has consented[vi]to the full original draft,with a few additions, being publishedfor private circulation. Shehas also, to my great gratification,and entirely on her own initiative,taken this opportunity of adding anappreciation of my elder sister.

My sisters’ acquaintance withLady Huggins commenced onlyafter they had been some timepermanently resident in London;and for the accuracy of the statementsrelating to their earlier livesI am alone responsible. Theirfather had died before the period[vii]of which Lady Huggins speaks frompersonal knowledge; and perhaps itis fit that I should supplement whatshe says as to the influence of familylife upon the characters and careersof my sisters by mentioning a fewfacts connected with my father.Although a classical scholar ofTrinity College, Dublin, his interestswere for the most part scientific.In our earliest years his recreationwas chemistry, the consequentialodours of which used to excite thewrath of our Irish servants. Latera “big telescope” (4 inch aperture)[viii]was mounted in the garden, and wechildren were occasionally treatedto a glimpse of Saturn’s rings, orJupiter’s satellites. In an age beforerailways and telegraphs had reachedthe remote parts of Ireland andbefore clocks were “synchronisedwith Greenwich,” the local timewould have gone “all agley” had itnot been for my father’s observationswith his “orthochronograph.”These trivial things show that it wasin an environment of scientific suggestionthat our early lives werepassed; and to me, at all events, my...