again by his successor, and suffered to depart to Linz."

Being thus left a widower with a ten-year-old daughter Susanna, and a
boy Louis of half her age, he looked for a second wife to take charge of
them. He has given an account of eleven ladies whose suitability he
considered. The first, an intimate friend of his first wife, ultimately
declined; one was too old, another an invalid, another too proud of her
birth and quarterings, another could do nothing useful, and so on.
Number eight kept him guessing for three months, until he tired of her
constant indecision, and confided his disappointment to number nine, who
was not impressed. Number ten, introduced by a friend, Kepler found
exceedingly ugly and enormously fat, and number eleven apparently too
young. Kepler then reconsidered one of the earlier ones, disregarding
the advice of his friends who objected to her lowly station. She was the
orphan daughter of a cabinetmaker, educated for twelve years by favour
of the Lady of Stahrenburg, and Kepler writes of her: "Her person and
manners are suitable to mine; no pride, no extravagance; she can bear to
work; she has a tolerable knowledge of how to manage a family;
middle-aged and of a disposition and capability to acquire what she
still wants".

Wine from the Austrian vineyards was plentiful and cheap at the time of
the marriage, and Kepler bought a few casks for his household. When the
seller came to ascertain the quantity, Kepler noticed that no proper
allowance was made for the bulging parts, and the upshot of his
objections was that he wrote a book on a new method of gauging--one of
the earliest specimens of modern analysis, extending the properties of
plane figures to segments of cones and cylinders as being "incorporated
circles". He was summoned before the Diet at Ratisbon to give his
opinion on the Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, and soon afterwards was