Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals Part 18

In 1855 Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l was taken suddenly ill, and although partial recovery followed, her illness lasted for six years, during which time Maria was her constant nurse. For most of the six years her mother's condition was such that merely a general care was needed, but it used to be said that Maria's eyes were always upon her. When the opportunity to go to Europe came, an older sister came with her family to take Maria's place in the home; and when Miss Mitch.e.l.l returned she found her mother so nearly in the state in which she had left her, that she felt justified in having taken the journey.

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l died in 1861, and a few months after her death Mr.

Mitch.e.l.l and his daughter removed to Lynn, Ma.s.s.--Miss Mitch.e.l.l having purchased a small house in that city, in the rear of which she erected the little observatory brought from Nantucket. She was very much depressed by her mother's death, and absorbed herself as much as possible in her observations and in her work for the Nautical Almanac.

Soon after her return from Europe she had been presented with an equatorial telescope, the gift of American women, through Miss Elizabeth Peabody. The following letter refers to this instrument:

LETTER FROM ADMIRAL SMYTH.

ST. JOHN'S LODGE, NEAR AYLESBURY, 25-7-'59.

MY DEAR MISS MITCh.e.l.l: ... We are much pleased to hear of your acquisition of an equatorial instrument under a revolving roof, for it is a true scientific luxury as well as an efficient implement. The aperture of your object-gla.s.s is sufficient for doing much useful work, but, if I may hazard an opinion to you, do not attempt too much, for it is quality rather than quant.i.ty which is now desirable. I would therefore leave the multiplication of objects to the larger order of telescopes, and to those who are given to sweep and ransack the heavens, of whom there is a goodly corps. Now, for your purpose, I would recommend a batch of neat, but not over-close, binary systems, selected so as to have always one or the other on hand.

I, however, have been bestirring myself to put amateurs upon a more convenient and, I think, a better mode of examining double stars than by the wire micrometer, with its faults of illumination, fiddling, jumps, and dirty lamps. This is by the beautiful method of rock-crystal prisms, not the Rochon method of double-image, but by thin wedges cut to given angles. I have told Mr. Alvan Clark my "experiences." and I hope he will apply his excellent mind to the scheme. I am insisting upon this point in some astronomical twaddle which I am now printing, and of which I shall soon have to request your acceptance of a copy.

There is a very important department which calls for a zealous amateur or two, namely, the colors of double stars, for these have usually been noted after the eye has been fatigued with observing in illuminated fields. The volume I hope to forward--_en hommage_--will contain all the pros and cons of this branch.

There is, for ultimate utility, nothing like forming a plan and then steadily following it. Those who profess they will attend to everything often fall short of the mark. The division of labor leads to beneficial conclusions as well in astronomy as in mechanics and arts.

Mrs. Smyth and my daughter unite with me in wishing you all happiness and success; and believe me

My dear Miss Mitch.e.l.l,

Yours very faithfully,

W. H. SMYTH.

In regard to the colors of stars, Miss Mitch.e.l.l had already begun their study, as these extracts from her diary show:

"Feb. 19, 1853. I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment. Betelgeuse is strikingly red, while Rigel is yellow. There is something of the same pleasure in noticing the hues that there is in looking at a collection of precious stones, or at a flower-garden in autumn. Blue stars I do not yet see, and but little lilac except through the telescope.

"Feb. 12, 1855.... I swept around for comets about an hour, and then I amused myself with noticing the varieties of color. I wonder that I have so long been insensible to this charm in the skies, the tints of the different stars are so delicate in their variety. ... What a pity that some of our manufacturers shouldn't be able to steal the secret of dyestuffs from the stars, and astonish the feminine taste by new brilliancy in fashion. [Footnote: See Chapter XI.]

[NANTUCKET], April [1860].

MY DEAR: Your father just gave me a great fright by "tapping at my window" (I believe Poe's was a door, wasn't it?) and holding up your note. I was busy examining some star notices just received from Russia or Germany,--I never knew where Dorpat is.--and just thinking that my work was as good as theirs. I always noticed that when school-teachers took a holiday in order to visit other inst.i.tutions they came home and quietly said, "No school is better or as good as mine." And then I read your note, and perceive your reading is as good as Mrs. Kemble's. Now, being _modest_, I always felt afraid the reason I thought you such a good reader was because I didn't know any better, but if all the world is equally ignorant, it makes it all right....

I've been intensely busy. I have been looking for the little inferior planet to cross the sun, which it hasn't done, and I got an article ready for the paper and then hadn't the courage to publish--not for fear of the readers, but for fear that I should change my own ideas by the time 'twas in print.

I am hoping, however, to have something by the meeting of the Scientific a.s.sociation in August,--some paper,--not to get reputation for myself,--my reputation is so much beyond me that as policy I should keep quiet,--but in order that my telescope may show that it is at work. I am embarra.s.sed by the amount of work it might do--as you do not know which of Mrs. Browning's poems to read, there are so many beauties.

The little republic of San Marino presented Miss Mitch.e.l.l, in 1859, with a bronze medal of merit, together with the _Ribbon_ and _Letters Patent_ signed by the two captains regent. This medal she prized as highly as the gold one from Denmark.

"Nantucket, May 12, 18[60].... I send you a notice of an occultation; the last sentence and the last figures are mine. You and I can never occult, for have we not always helped one another to shine? Do you have Worcester's Dictionary? I read it continually. Did you feast on 'The Marble Faun'? I have a charming letter from Una Hawthorne, herself a poet by nature, all about 'papa's book.' Ought not Mr. Hawthorne to be the happiest man alive? He isn't, though! Do save all the anecdotes you possibly can, piquant or not; starved people are not over-nice.

LYNN, Jan. 5 [1864].

... I very rarely see the B----s; they go to a different church, and you know with that cla.s.s of people "not to be with us is to be against us." Indeed, I know very little of Lynn people. If I can get at Mr. J., when you come to see me I'll ask him to tea.

He has called several times, but he's in such demand that he must be engaged some weeks in advance! Would you, if you lived in Lynn, want to fall into such a ma.s.s of idolaters?

I was wretchedly busy up to December 31, but have got into quiet seas again. I have had a great deal of company--not a person that I did not want to see, but I can't make the days more than twenty-four hours long, with all my economy of time. This week Professor Crosby, of Salem, comes up with his graduating cla.s.s and his corps of teachers for an evening.

They remained in Lynn until Miss Mitch.e.l.l was called to Va.s.sar College, in 1865, as professor of astronomy and director of the observatory.

CHAPTER IX

1865-1885

LIFE AT Va.s.sAR COLLEGE

In her life at Va.s.sar College there was a great deal for Miss Mitch.e.l.l to get accustomed to; if her duties had been merely as director of the observatory, it would have been simply a continuation of her previous work. But she was expected, of course, to teach astronomy; she was by no means sure that she could succeed as a teacher, and with this new work on hand she could not confine herself to original investigation--that which had been her great aim in life.

But she was so much interested in the movement for the higher education of women, an interest which deepened as her work went on, that she gave up, in a great measure, her scientific life, and threw herself heart and soul into this work.

For some years after she went to Va.s.sar, she still continued the work for the Nautical Almanac; but after a while she relinquished that, and confined herself wholly to the work in the college.

"1866. Va.s.sar College brought together a ma.s.s of heterogeneous material, out of which it was expected that a harmonious whole would evolve--pupils from all parts of the country, of different habits, different training, different views; teachers, mostly from New England, differing also; professors, largely from Ma.s.sachusetts, yet differing much. And yet, after a year, we can say that there has been no very noisy jarring of the discordant elements; small jostling has been felt, but the president has oiled the rough places, and we have slid over them.

"... Miss ---- is a bigot, but a very sincere one. She is the most conservative person I ever met. I think her a very good woman, a woman of great energy.... She is very kind to me, but had we lived in the colonial days of Ma.s.sachusetts, and had she been a power, she would have burned me at the stake for heresy!

"Yesterday the rush began. Miss Lyman [the lady princ.i.p.al] had set the twenty teachers all around in different places, and I was put into the parlor to talk to 'anxious mothers.'

"Miss Lyman had a hoa.r.s.e cold, but she received about two hundred students, and had all their rooms a.s.signed to them.

"While she had one anxious mamma, I took two or three, and kept them waiting until she could attend to them. Several teachers were with me. I made a rush at the visitors as they entered, and sometimes I was asked if I were lady princ.i.p.al, and sometimes if I were the matron. This morning Miss Lyman's voice was gone. She must have seen five hundred people yesterday.

"Among others there was one Miss Mitch.e.l.l, and, of course, that anxious mother put that girl under my special care, and she is very bright. Then there were two who were sent with letters to me, and several others whose mothers took to me because they were frightened by Miss Lyman's _style_.

"One lady, who seemed to be a bright woman, got me by the b.u.t.ton and held me a long time--she wanted this, that, and the other impracticable thing for the girl, and told me how honest her daughter was; then with a flood of tears she said, 'But she is not a Christian. I know I put her into good hands when I put her here.' (Then I was strongly tempted to avow my Unitarianism.) Miss W., who was standing by, said, 'Miss Lyman will be an excellent spiritual adviser,' and we both looked very serious; when the mother wiped her weeping eyes and said, 'And, Miss Mitch.e.l.l, will you ask Miss Lyman to insist that my daughter shall curl her hair? She looks very graceful when her hair is curled, and I want it insisted upon,' I made a note of it with my pencil, and as I happened to glance at Miss W. the corners of her mouth were twitching, upon which I broke down and laughed. The mother bore it very good-naturedly, but went on. She wanted to know who would work some b.u.t.tonholes in her daughter's dress that was not quite finished, etc., and it all ended in her inviting me to make her a visit.

"Oct. 31, 1866. Our faculty meetings always try me in this respect: we do things that other colleges have done before. We wait and ask for precedent. If the earth had waited for a precedent, it never would have turned on its axis!

"Sept. 22, 1868. I have written to-day to give up the Nautical Almanac work. I do not feel sure that it will be for the best, but I am sure that I could not hold the almanac and the college, and father is happy here.

"I tell Miss Lyman that my father is so much pleased with everything here that I am afraid he will be immersed!" [Footnote: Va.s.sar College, though professedly unsectarian, was mainly under Baptist control.] Only those who knew Va.s.sar College in its earlier days can tell of the life that the father and daughter led there for four years.

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l died in 1869.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER]

"Jan. 3, 1868. Meeting Dr. Hill at a private party, I asked him if Harvard College would admit girls in fifty years. He said one of the most conservative members of the faculty had said, within sixteen days, that it would come about in twenty years. I asked him if I could go into one of Professor Peirce's recitations. He said there was nothing to keep me out, and that he would let me know when they came.

"At eleven A.M., the next Friday, I stood at Professor Peirce's door. As the professor came in I went towards him, and asked him if I might attend his lecture. He said 'Yes.' I said 'Can you not say "I shall be happy to have you"?' and he said 'I shall be happy to have you,' but he didn't look happy!

"It was with some little embarra.s.sment that Mrs. K. and I seated ourselves. Sixteen young men came into the room; after the first glance at us there was not another look, and the lecture went on. Professor Peirce had filled the blackboard with formulae, and went on developing them. He walked backwards and forwards all the time, thinking it out as he went. The students at first all took notes, but gradually they dropped off until perhaps only half continued. When he made simple mistakes they received it in silence; only one, that one his son (a tutor in college), remarked that he was wrong. The steps of his lesson were all easy, but of course it was impossible to tell whence he came or whither he was going....