mathematics was marked, but I had a vast admiration for a man to whom
its processes were easy. We became very good friends. He was a genial
fellow, capable as I have said of taking or making a joke, yet his
moods were prevailingly serious, and he had already hitched his waggon
to a star. Abnormally purposeful perhaps, a cropping out no doubt of
heredity, he had set a high mark for himself and was already striving
toward it. In an autobiographical fragment he says, referring to his
early surrender of his powers to high mathematical work:

To this work I was especially attracted, because its
preparation seemed to me to embody the highest
intellectual power to which man has ever attained.
The matter used to present itself to my mind somewhat
in this way.... There are tens of thousands
of men who could be successful in all the ordinary
walks of life. Thousands who could gain wealth,
hundreds who could wield empires, for one who
could take up the astronomical problems with any
hope of success. The men who have done it are
therefore in intellect the select few of the human
race, an aristocracy ranking above all others in the
scale of being. The astronomical _ephemeris_ is the
last practical outcome of their productive genius.

In pursuing their lives men no doubt follow the line of least
resistance, and Simon Newcomb here we may be sure was no exception;
thus he chose to deal in his work with the heaviest and most
perplexing problems with which the human intellect can engage. I
do not attempt to describe or estimate what he achieved. Only a few
select minds in his generation were capable of that. At his death the
tributes of those who had a right to speak were unmeasured. Perhaps no
human mind ever attacked more boldly the uttermost difficulties, and
indeed have been more successful in the wrestle. He was set by the
side of Hipparchus, of Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Sir Isaac
Newton. In a class thus lofty, his scientific fellows have judged
that he had a title to stand. In their high strivings he was equally
zealous, and his achievement was comparable with theirs. Nevertheless,
had his disposition inclined him, there were many other paths into
which he might have struck with success. His versatility was marked
and he did try his hand at various tasks, at finance, political
economy, belles-lettres. James Bryce, who knew him well, is said to
have seen in him the stuff for a great man-of-aff