16 - Last days and retrospect

Summary

Arbiter and peacemaker

Agnes Clerke in her sixties had become a sort of mother figure among astronomers, tactful, kind, helpful. The sour comments of R.A. Gregory in Nature, about which she never complained, appear to have been the only shadow on her blameless life. She kept her balance in the dispute between Huggins and Lockyer without offending either, and subscribed to the superiority of the American spectroscopists without offending the Hugginses. A glimpse of her in the role of peacemaker is found in her correspondence in 1904 with W.W. Campbell of Lick, a man who in his youth was not afraid to stand up for himself against acknowledged ‘authorities’ (Huggins being one) if he knew his work was better. There was a long-running difference of opinion between him and Huggins about the spectra of the Orion Nebula and the Orion trapezium stars. He also challenged the Hugginses' view, repeated in their recently published Atlas, that the Orion Nebula was variable. Campbell was now returning to the subject, and in a less aggressive mood than formerly sent a copy of his manuscript to Huggins before publishing. He placed the matter before Agnes Clerke, explaining that the reason for the differences between his observations and those of Huggins over the years was instrumental. Agnes Clerke replied that ‘no-one, least of all Sir William Huggins, will be likely to misconstrue the spirit of entire loyalty to science in which it [i.e. your investigation] has been conducted’.