1856. Death of Mr. De Morgan's mother

My mother-in-law died after a long illness this year, to the great sorrow of her three sons. Though there was great difference of opinion, chiefly on doctrinal matters, between my husband and herself, there was strong mutual affection, and some resemblances of character. He shared with her the quality which he used to find troublesome when he lived in her house; namely, anxiety to a morbid degree about those she loved when they were out of her sight. If he came home an hour later in the evening than she expected, she conjured up all kinds of terrible accidents which he might have met with. One reason of this, on Augustus's account, was his want of sight on the right-hand side. He was very like her in this morbid anxiety, so that those who left the house in the evening had to be punctual in the time of their return if they wished him to be easy. From his mother he inherited his musical talent, and most probably his mathematical power, for she was the granddaughter of James Dodson, the author of the Mathematical Canon, a distinguished Mathematician, the friend of Demoivre, and of most other men of science of his time, and an early F.R.S. But he was Mathematical master at Christ's Hospital, and some of his descendants seem to have thought this a blot on the scutcheon, for his great-grandson has left on record the impression he had of his ancestor.