The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-04
GALTLEO.
Inst Scenes In his Lito.

lnst scenes IN ms LUo
The chief sunshine of the latter part of
Galilco's life was his eldest daughter, the nun
Maria Celeste. The Church had indeed taken
from the world rare pearl when she appro-
priated to herself the astronomers child.
Beneath that nuns vail was hidden q won
drous wealth of wit, and heart, and sterling
good sense. The nuns, wrapped up in the
narrow egotism but too common in cloisters,
only guessed dimly at these treasures her
father alone knew the full worth of them.
On him was lavished all the love which should
by right have been shared among husband
and children and familiar friends. 1t was
useless for the abbess to tell Maria
Celeste she ought to give herself entirely to
heaven; her mind was very much upon
earth, for her thoughts were always with
her father. She prayed for him when she
ought to have been praying for the Pope and
the cardinals. She kept for him the most
dainty of the sweetmeats she made, instead of
selling them for the convent purse. She
stitched his shirts when she should have been
embroideripg altar cloths. She copied for him
his manuscripts when she should have been
reading the lives of the saints. In conse-
quence of the Franciscan vow of poverty, the
poor nuns at Arcetri often knew what it was
to lack a good meal and to shiver for want of
fire. The constitution of Maria Celeste was
weakly, and could bear but ill such a life.
She constantly suffered in her head from what
would, we believe, in the medical light of the
present day. have been called neuralgia. Cali
leo was always providing her with little
comforts to make her life more bearable; aud,
indeed, his charity to the whole convent
quite realized the hopes conceived by the
abbess when she first admitted his daughter.
We like to fancy the kindly, liberal handed
old astronomer in the convent parlor, with all
the sisters chattering round him and prefer
ring their simple requests.
When he was hard upon seventy Galileo
publis he'd a volume of catalogues, in which
he maintained the truth of the new system of
astronomy and proved the falacy of the old.
His friends had warned him against this
dangerous step. He, however, persisted,
and the moment the book was out the
Jesuits pounced upon it. They had long
been waiting to be able to make out q strong
case against him. He was, in their opinion,
Just the sort of man to be feared and hunted
down.
The Pope at that time was Urban VIII.
Hitherto he bad been we'll disposed to Galileo.
The Jesuits, however, managed to poison the
Pontiff's mind by telling him that the solemn
fool of tie Dialogues" was meant for his
Holiness himself. His vanity being thus
called up into arms, Urban was as violent as
the Jesuits against the astronomer. The cir
culation of the book was stopped, and Galileo
was cited to appear at Rome before the In
QUESTION charge of heresy.
After that day he was never the Galileo of
former times. He was, however, cheered by
the noisy sympathy of his many pupils and
soothed by the softer tones of woman. His
daughter wrote him words of Christian resig-
nation. Caterina Nicolini, the wife of the
Florentine Ambassador at Rome, took him
into her own house, and thought it no dis
grace to her noble blood to wait upon and
tend him. Maria Tedaldi, the most vivacious
dame in vivacious Florence, triumphantly
established the supremacy of the female
declaring that Galileo had been always right,
and was now right, and would be right to the
end.
At length he was allowed to return to Flo
renee, but the argus eyes of the Inquisition
watched him till he was in his grave. His
daughters weak health had given way under
the anxiety she had suffered for him. The
sweet girl lived to kiss him once again, and
then went away to the angels of her convent
dreams. The lonely old man wept her bit
terly but the law of perpetual motion, which
rules genius as we'll as planets, made him go
on working. He was still busy with his pen
and In his observatory. Three or four years
before his death he was quito blind; as great
an affiiction for Galileo, the astronomer, rs
Adeafness was for Haydn the musician. His
A last days were frightened by visits from the
Ngrand ducal family, and by the devotion OF
Niviani, his favorite pupil, who to ok his un-
worthy sons place. At length, in 1912, the
soul of the great astronomer assembled to its
in truth native stars.-Ihe ArgOSy.