Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals - Maria Mitchell
"At the time when I saw her, she was thinking of her statue of Zenobia.
She was studying the history of Palmyra, reading up on the manners and
customs of its people, and examining Eastern relics and costumes.
"If she heard that in the sacristy of a certain cathedral, hundreds of
miles away, were lying robes of Eastern queens, she mounted her horse
and rode to the spot, for the sake of learning the lesson they could
teach.
"Day after day alone in her studio, she studied the subject. Think what
knowledge of the country, of the history of the people, must be
gathered, must be moulded, to bring into the face and bearing of its
queen the expression of the race! Think what familiar acquaintance with
the human form, to represent a lifelike figure at all!
"For years after I came home I read the newspapers to see if I could
find any notice of the statue of Zenobia; and I did at length see this
announcement: 'The statue of Zenobia, by Miss Hosmer, is on exhibition
at Childs & Jenks'.'
"It was after five years. All through those five years, Miss Hosmer had
kept her projects steadily turned in this direction.
"Whatever may be the criticism of art upon her work, no one can deny
that she is above the average artist.
"But she is herself, as a woman, very much above herself in art. If
there came to any struggling artist in Rome the need of a friend,--and
of the thousand artists in Rome very few are successful,--Harriet Hosmer
was that friend.
"I knew her to stretch out a helping hand to an unfortunate artist, a
poor, uneducated, unattractive American, against whom the other
Americans in Rome shut their houses and their hearts. When the other
Americans turned from the unsuccessful artist, Harriet Hosmer reached
forth the helping hand.
"When Harriet Hosmer knew herself to be a sculptor, she knew also that
in all America was no school for her. She must leave home, she must live
where art could live. She might model her busts in the clay of her own
soil, but who should follow out in marble the delicate thought which the
clay expressed? The workmen of Massachusetts tended the looms, built the
railroads, and read the newspapers. The hard-handed men of Italy worked
in marble from the designs put before them; one copied the leaves which
the sculptor threw into the wreaths around the brows of his heroes;
another turned with his tool the folds of the drapery; another wrought
up the delicate tissues of the flesh; none of them dreamed of ideas:
they were copyists,--the very hand-work that her head needed.
"And to Italy she went. For her school she sought the studio of
Gibson--the greatest sculptor of the time.
"She resolved 'To scorn delights and live laborious days;' and there she
has lived and worked for years.
"She fashions the clay to her ideal--every little touch of her fingers
in the clay is a thought; she thinks in clay.
"The model finished and cast in the dull, hard, inexpressive plaster,
she stands by the workmen while they put it into the marble. She must
watch them, for a touch of the tool in the wrong place might alter the
whole expression of the face, as a wrong accent in the reader will spoil
a line of poetry.
"COLLEGIO ROMANO; SECCHI. There was another observatory which had a
reputation and was known in America. It was the observatory of the
Collegio Romano, and was in the monastery behind the Church of St.
Ignasio. Its director was the Father Secchi who had visited the United
States, and was well known to the scientists of this country.
"I said to myself, 'This is the land of Galileo, and this is the city in
which he was tried. I knew of no sadder picture in the history of
science than that of the old man, Galileo, worn by a long life of
scientific research, weak and feeble, trembling before that tribunal
whose frown was torture, and declaring that to be false which he knew to
be true. And I know of no picture in the history of religion more weakly
pitiable than that of the Holy Church trembling before Galileo, and
denouncing him because he found in the Book of Nature truths not stated
in their own Book of God--forgetting that the Book of Nature is also a
Book of God.
"It seems to be difficult for any one to take in the idea that two
truths cannot conflict.
"Galileo was the first to see the four moons of Jupiter; and when he
announced the fact that four such moons existed, of course he was met by
various objections from established authority. One writer declared that
as astrologers had got along very well without these planets, there
could be no reason for their starting into existence.
"But his greatest heresy was this: He was tried, condemned, and punished
for declaring that the sun was the centre of the system, and that the
earth moved around it; also, that the earth turned on its axis.
"For teaching this, Galileo was called before the assembled cardinals of
Rome, and, clad in black cloth, was compelled to kneel, and to promise
never again to teach that the earth moved. It is said that when he arose
he whispered, 'It does move!'
"He was tried at the Hall of Sopre Minerva. In fewer than two hundred
years from that time the Church of St. Ignasio was built, and the
monastery on whose walls the instruments of the modern observatory
stand.
"It is a very singular fact, but one which seems to show that even in
science 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,' that the
spot where Galileo was tried is very near the site of the present
observatory, to which the pope was very liberal.
"From the Hall of Sopre Minerva you make but two turns through short
streets to the Fontenelle de Borghese, in the rear of which stands the
present observatory.
"Indeed, if a cardinal should, at the Hall of Sopre Minerva, call out to
Secchi, 'Watchman, what of the night?' Secchi could hear the question;
and no bolder views emanate from any observatory than those which Secchi
sends out.
"I sent a card to Secchi, and awaited a call, well satisfied to have a
little more time for listless strolling among ruins and into the
studios. And so we spent many an hour: picking up land shells from the
top of the Coliseum, gathering violets in the upper chambers of the
Palace of the Caesars,--for the overgrown walls made climbing very
easy,--or, resting upon some broken statue on the Forum, we admired the
arches of the Temple of Peace, thrown upon the rich blue of the sunny
skies.
"Returning one day from a drive, I met two priests descending one of the
upper flights of stairs in the house where I lived. As my rooms had been
blessed once, and holy water sprinkled upon them, I thought perhaps
another process of that kind had just been gone through, and was about
to pass them, when one of them, accosting me, asked if I were the
Signorine Mitchell,--changing his Italian to good English as he saw that
I was, and introducing himself as Father Secchi. He told me that the
younger man was a young _religieux_, and the two turned and went back
with me.
"I recalled, as I saw Father Secchi, an anecdote I had heard, no way to
his credit,--except for ingenious trickery. It was said that coming to
America he brought with him the object-glass of a telescope, at a time
when scientific apparatus paid a high duty. Being asked by some official
what the article was, he replied, 'My looking-glass,' and in that way
passed it off as personal wardrobe, so escaped the duty. (It may have
been De Vico.)
"Father Secchi had brought with him, to show me, negatives of the planet
Saturn,--the rings showing beautifully, although the image was not more
than half an inch in size.
"I was ignorant enough of the ways of papal institutions, and, indeed,
of all Italy, to ask if I might visit the Roman Observatory. I
remembered that the days of Galileo were days of two centuries since. I
did not know that my heretic feet must not enter the sanctuary,--that my
woman's robe must not brush the seats of learning.
"The Father's refusal was seen in his face at once, and I felt that I
had done something highly improper. The Father said that he would have
been most happy to have me visit him, but he had not the power--it was a
religious institution--he had already applied to his superior, who was
not willing to grant permission--the power lay with the Holy Father or
one of his cardinals. I was told that Mrs. Somerville, the most learned
woman in all Europe, had been denied admission; that the daughter of Sir
John Herschel, in spite of English rank, and the higher stamp of
Nature's nobility, was at that time in Rome, and could not enter an
observatory which was at the same time a monastery.
"If I had before been mildly desirous of visiting the observatory, I was
now intensely anxious to do so. Father Secchi suggested that I should
see Cardinal Antonelli in person, with a written application in my hand.
This was not to be thought of--to ask an interview with the wily
cardinal!
FROM A LETTER TO HER FATHER.
... I am working to get admitted to see the observatory, but it
cannot be done without special permission from the pope, and I
don't like to be "presented." If I can get permission without
the humbug of putting on a black veil and receiving a blessing
from Pius, I shall; but I shrink from the formality of
presentation. I know thou'd say "Be presented."
"Our minister at that time had the reputation of being very careless of
the needs and wishes of his countrymen, and I was not surprised to find
a long delay.
"In the course of my waiting, I had told my story to a young Italian
gentleman, the nephew of a monseigneur; a monseigneur being next in rank
to a cardinal. He assured me that permission would never be obtained by
our minister.
"After a fortnight's waiting I received a permit, written on parchment,
and signed by Cardinal Antonelli.
"When the young Italian next called, I held the parchment up in triumph,
and boasted that Minister ---- had at length moved in the matter. The
young man coolly replied, 'Yes, I spoke to my uncle last evening, and
asked him to urge the matter with Cardinal Antonelli; but for that it
would never have come!' There had been 'red tape,' and I had not seen
it.
"At the same time that the formal missive was sent to me, a similar one
was sent to Father Secchi, authorizing him to receive me. The Father
called at once to make the arrangements for my visit. I made the most
natural mistake! I supposed that the doors which opened to one woman,
opened to all, and I asked to take with me my Italian servant, a
quick-witted and bright-eyed woman, who had escorted me to and from
social parties in the evening, and who had learned in these walks the
names of the stars, receiving them from me in English, and giving back
to me the sweet Italian words; and who had come to think herself quite
an astronomer. Father Secchi refused at once. He said I was to meet him
at the Church of St. Ignasio at one and a half hours before Ave Marie,
and he would conduct me through the church into the observatory. My
servant might come into the church with me. The Ave Marie bell rings
half an hour after sunset.
"At the appointed time, the next fine day,--and all days seem to be
fine,--we set out on our mission.
"When we entered the church we saw, far in the distance, Father Secchi,
standing just behind a pillar. He slipped out a little way, as much as
to say, 'I await you,' but did not come forward to meet us; so the woman
and I passed along through the rows of kneeling worshippers, by the
strolling students, and past the lounging tourists--who, guide-book in
hand, are seen in every foreign church--until we came to the standpoint
from which the Father had been watching us.
"Then the Italian woman put up a petition, not one word of which I could
understand, but the gestures and the pointing showed that she begged to
go on and enter the monastery and see the observatory. Father Secchi
said, 'No, the Holy Father gave permission to one only,' and alone I
entered the monastery walls.
"Through long halls, up winding staircases, occasionally stopped by some
priest who touched his broad hat and asked 'Parlate Italiano?'
occasionally passed by students, often stopped by pictures on the
walls,--once to be introduced to a professor; then through the library
of the monastery, full of manuscripts on which monks had worked away
their lives; then through the astronomical library, where young
astronomers were working away theirs, we reached at length the dome and
the telescope.
"One observatory is so much like another that it does not seem worth
while to describe Father Secchi's. This observatory has a telescope
about the size of that at Washington (about twelve inches). Secchi had
no staff, and no prescribed duties. The base of the observatory was the
solid foundation of the old Roman building. The church was built in
1650, and the monastery in part at that time, certainly the dome of the
room in which was the meridian instrument.
"The staircase is cut out of the old Roman walls, which no roll of
carriage, except that of the earthquake chariot, can shake.
"Having no prescribed duties, Secchi could follow his fancies--he could
pick up comets as he picked up bits of Mosaic upon the Roman forum. He
learns what himself and his instruments can do, and he keeps to that
narrow path.
"He was at that time much interested in celestial photography.
"Italy must be the very paradise of astronomers; certainly I never saw
objects so well before; the purity of the air must be very superior to
ours. We looked at Venus with a power of 150, but it was not good.
Jupiter was beautiful, and in broad daylight the belts were plainly
seen. With low powers the moon was charming, but the air would not bear
high ones.
"Father Secchi said he had used a power of 2,000, but that 600 was more
common. I have rarely used 400. Saturn was exquisite; the rings were
separated all around; the dusky ring could be seen, and, of course, the
shadow of the ball upon the ring.
"The spectroscopic method of observing starlight was used by Secchi as
early as by any astronomer. By this method the starlight is analyzed,
and the sunlight is analyzed, and the two compared. If it does not
disclose absolutely what are the peculiarities of starlight and
sunlight, relatively, it traces the relationship.
"In order to be successful in this kind of observation, the telescope
must keep very accurately the motion of the earth in its axis; and so
the papal government furnishes nice machinery to keep up with this
motion,--the same motion for declaring whose existence Galileo suffered!
The two hundred years had done their work.
"I should have been glad to stay until dark to look at nebulae, but the
Father kindly informed me that my permission did not extend beyond the
daylight, which was fast leaving us, and conducting me to the door he
informed me that I must make my way home alone, adding, 'But we live in
a civilized country.'
"I did not express to him the doubt that rose to my thoughts! The Ave
Marie bell rings half an hour after sunset, and before that time I must
be out of the observatory and at my own house."
CHAPTER VIII
1858-1865
FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR CONCLUDED--MRS. SOMERVILLE--HUMBOLDT--MRS.
MITCHELL'S DEATH--REMOVAL TO LYNN, MASS.--PRESENT OF AN EQUATORIAL
TELESCOPE-EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS
"I had no hope, when I went to Europe, of knowing Mrs. Somerville.
American men of science did not know her, and there had been unpleasant
passages between the savants of Europe and those of the United States
which made my friends a little reluctant about giving me letters.
"Professor Henry offered to send me letters, and said that among them
should be one to Mrs. Somerville; but when his package came, no such
letter appeared, and I did not like to press the matter,--indeed, after
I had been in England I was not surprised at any amount of reluctance.
They rarely asked to know my friends, and yet, if they were made known
to them, they did their utmost.
"So I went to Europe with no letter to Mrs. Somerville, and no letter to
the Herschels.
"I was very soon domesticated with the Airys, and really felt my
importance when I came to sleep in one of the round rooms of the Royal
Observatory. I dared give no hint to the Airys that I wanted to know the
Herschels, although they were intimate friends. 'What was I that I
should love them, save for feeling of the pain?' But one fine day a
letter came to Mrs. Airy from Lady Herschel, and she asked, 'Would not
Miss Mitchell like to visit us?' Of course Miss Mitchell jumped at the
chance! Mrs. Airy replied, and probably hinted that Miss Mitchell 'could
be induced,' etc.
"If the Airys were old friends of Mrs. Somerville, the Herschels were
older. The Airys were just and kind to me; the Herschels were lavish,
and they offered me a letter to Mrs. Somerville.
"So, provided with this open sesame to Mrs. Somerville's heart, I called
at her residence in Florence, in the spring of 1858.
"I sent in the letter and a card, and waited in the large Florentine
parlor. In the open fireplace blazed a wood fire very suggestive of
American comfort--very deceitful in the suggestion, for there is little
of home comfort in Italy.
"After some little delay I heard a footstep come shuffling along the
outer room, and an exceedingly tall and very old man entered the room,
in the singular head-dress of a red bandanna turban, approached me, and
introduced himself as Dr. Somerville, the husband.
"He was very proud of his wife, and very desirous of talking about her,
a weakness quite pardonable in the judgment of one who is desirous to
know. He began at once on the subject. Mrs. Somerville, he said, took
great interest in the Americans, for she claimed connection with the
family of George Washington.
"Washington's half-brother, Lawrence, married Anne Fairfax, who was one
of the Scotch family. When Lieutenant Fairfax was ordered to America,
Washington wrote to him as a family relative, and asked him to make him
a visit. Lieutenant Fairfax applied to his commanding officer for
permission to accept, and it was refused. They never met, and much to
the regret of the Fairfax family the letter of Washington was lost. The
Fairfaxes of Virginia are of the same family, and occasionally some
member of the American branch returns to see his Scotch cousins.
"While Dr. Somerville was eagerly talking of these things, Mrs.
Somerville came tripping into the room, speaking at once with the
vivacity of a young person. She was seventy-seven years old, but
appeared twenty years younger. She was not handsome, but her face was
pleasing; the forehead low and broad; the eyes blue; the features so
regular, that in the marble bust by Chantrey, which I had seen, I had
considered her handsome.
"Neither bust nor picture, however, gives a correct idea of her, except
in the outline of the head and shoulders.
"She spoke with a strong Scotch accent, and was slightly affected with
deafness, an infirmity so common in England and Scotland.
"While Mrs. Somerville talked, the old gentleman, seated by the fire,
busied himself in toasting a slice of bread on a fork, which he kept at
a slow-toasting distance from the coals. An English lady was present,
learned in art, who, with a volubility worthy of an American, rushed
into every little opening of Mrs. Somerville's more measured sentences
with her remarks upon recent discoveries in _her_ specialty. Whenever
this occurred, the old man grew fidgety, moved the slice of bread
backwards and forwards as if the fire were at fault, and when, at
length, the English lady had fairly conquered the ground, and was
started on a long sentence, he could bear the eclipse of his idol no
longer, but, coming to the sofa where we sat, he testily said, 'Mrs.
Somerville would rather talk on science than on art.'
"Mrs. Somerville's conversation was marked by great simplicity; it was
rather of the familiar and chatty order, with no tendency to the essay
style. She touched upon the recent discoveries in chemistry or the
discovery of gold in California, of the nebulae, more and more of which
she thought might be resolved, and yet that there might exist nebulous
matters, such as compose the tails of comets, of the satellites, of the
planets, the last of which she thought had other uses than as
subordinates. She spoke with disapprobation of Dr. Whewell's attempt to
prove that our planet was the only one inhabited by reasoning beings;
she believed that a higher order of beings than ourselves might people
them.
"On subsequent visits there were many questions from Mrs. Somerville in
regard to the progress of science in America. She regretted, she said,
that she knew so little of what was done in our country.
"From Lieutenant Maury, alone, she received scientific papers. She spoke
of the late Dr. (Nathaniel) Bowditch with great interest, and said she
had corresponded with one of his sons. She asked after Professor Peirce,
whom she considered a great mathematician, and of the Bonds, of
Cambridge. She was much interested in their photography of the stars,
and said it had never been done in Europe. At that time photography was
but just applied to the stars. I had carried to the Royal Astronomical
Society the first successful photograph of a star. It was that of Mizar
and Alcor, in the Great Bear. (Since that time all these things have
improved.)
"The last time I saw Mrs. Somerville, she took me into her garden to
show me her rose-bushes, in which she took great pride. Mrs. Somerville
was not a mathematician only, she spoke Italian fluently, and was in
early life a good musician.
"I could but admire Mrs. Somerville as a woman. The ascent of the steep
and rugged path of science had not unfitted her for the drawing-room
circle; the hours of devotion to close study have not been incompatible
with the duties of wife and mother; the mind that has turned to rigid
demonstration has not thereby lost its faith in those truths which
figures will not prove. 'I have no doubt,' said she, in speaking of the
heavenly bodies, 'that in another state of existence we shall know more
about these things.'
"Mrs. Somerville, at the age of seventy-seven, was interested in every
new improvement, hopeful, cheery, and happy. Her society was sought by
the most cultivated people in the world. [She died at ninety-two.]
"Berlin, May 7, 1858. Humboldt had replied to my letter of introduction
by a note, saying that he should be happy to see me at 2 P.M., May 7. Of
course I was punctual. Humboldt is one of several residents in a very
ordinary-looking house on Oranienberge strasse.
"All along up the flight of stairs to his room were printed notices
telling persons where to leave packages and letters for Alexander
Humboldt.
"The servant showed me at first into a sort of anteroom, hung with
deers' horns and carpeted with tigers' skins, then into the study, and
asked me to take a seat on the sofa. The room was very warm; comfort was
evidently carefully considered, for cushions were all around; the sofa
was handsomely covered with worsted embroidery. A long study-table was
full of books and papers.
"I had waited but a few moments when Humboldt came in; he was a smaller
man than I had expected to see. He was neater, more 'trig,' than the
pictures represent him; in looking at the pictures you feel that his
head is too large,--out of proportion to the body,--but you do not
perceive this when you see him.
"He bowed in a most courtly manner, and told me he was much obliged to
me for coming to see him, then shook hands, and asked me to sit, and
took a chair near me.
"There was a clock in sight, and I stayed but half an hour. He talked
every minute, and on all kinds of subjects: of Dr. Bache, who was then
at the head of the U.S. Coast Survey; of Dr. Gould, who had recently
returned from long years in South America; of the Washington Observatory
and its director, Lieutenant Maury; of the Dudley Observatory, at
Albany; of Sir George Airy, of the Greenwich Observatory; of Professor
Enke's comet reputation; of Argelander, who was there observing variable
stars; of Mrs. Somerville and Goldschmidt, and of his brother.
"It was the period when the subject of admitting Kansas as a slave State
was discussed--he touched upon that; it was during the administration of
President Buchanan, and he talked about that.
"Having been nearly a year in Europe, I had not kept up my reading of
American newspapers, but Humboldt could tell me the latest news,
scientifically and politically. To my ludicrous mortification, he told
me of the change of position of some scientific professor in New York
State, and when I showed that I didn't know the location of the town,
which was Clinton, he told me if I would look at the map, which lay upon
the table, I should find the town somewhere between Albany and Buffalo.
"Humboldt was always considered a good-tempered, kindly-natured man, but
his talk was a little fault-finding.
"He said: 'Lieutenant Maury has been useful, but for the director of an
observatory he has put forth some strange statements in the 'Geography
of the Sea.'