Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals - Maria Mitchell
"_We_ saw the giant shadow as it _left_ us and passed over the lands of
the untutored Indian; _they_ saw it as it approached from the distant
west, as it fell upon the peaks of the mountain-tops, and, in the
impressive stillness, moved directly for our camping-ground.
"The savage, to whom it is the frowning of the Great Spirit, is
awe-struck and alarmed; the scholar, to whom it is a token of the
inviolability of law, is serious and reverent.
"There is a dialogue in some of the old school-readers, and perhaps in
some of the new, between a tutor and his two pupils who had been out for
a walk. One pupil complained that the way was long, the road was dusty,
and the scenery uninteresting; the other was full of delight at the
beauties he had found in the same walk. One had walked with his eyes
intellectually closed; the other had opened his eyes wide to all the
charms of nature. In some respects we are all, at different times, like
each of these boys: we shut our eyes to the enjoyments of nature, or we
open them. But we are capable of improving ourselves, even in the use of
our eyes--we see most when we are most determined to see. The _will_ has
a wonderful effect upon the perceptive faculties. When we first look up
at the myriads of stars seen in a moonless evening, all is confusion to
us; we admire their brilliancy, but we scarcely recognize their
grouping. We do not feel the need of knowing much about them.
"A traveller, lost on a desert plain, feels that the recognition of one
star, the Pole star, is of itself a great acquisition; and all persons
who, like mariners and soldiers, are left much with the companionship of
the stars, only learn to know the prominent clusters, even if they do
not know the names given to them in books.
"The daily wants of the body do not require that we should say
"'Give me the ways of wandering stars to know
The depths of heaven above and earth below.'
But we have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around
us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the
more are we capable of seeing.
"Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned,--_not to
see_ what is not.
"If we read in to-day's paper that a brilliant comet was seen last night
in New York, we are very likely to see it to-night in Boston; for we
take every long, fleecy cloud for a splendid comet.
"When the comet of 1680 was expected, a few years ago, to reappear, some
young men in Cambridge told Professor Bond that they had seen it; but
Professor Bond did not see it. Continually are amateurs in astronomy
sending notes of new discoveries to Bond, or some other astronomers,
which are no discoveries at all!
"Astronomers have long supposed the existence of a planet inferior to
Mercury; and M. Leverrier has, by mathematical calculation, demonstrated
that such a planet exists. He founded his calculations upon the supposed
discovery of M. Lesbarcault, who declares that it crossed the sun's
disc, and that he saw it and made drawings. The internal evidence, from
the man's account, is that he was an honest enthusiast. I have no doubt
that he followed the path of a solar spot, and as the sun turned on its
axis he mistook the motion for that of the dark spot; or perhaps the
spot changed and became extinct, and another spot closely resembling it
broke out and he was deceived; his wishes all the time being 'father to
the thought.'
"The eye is as teachable as the hand. Every one knows the most prominent
constellations,--the Pleiades, the Great Bear, and Orion. Many persons
can draw the figures made by the most brilliant stars in these
constellations, and very many young people look for the 'lost Pleiad.'
But common observers know these stars only as bright objects; they do
not perceive that one star differs from another in glory; much less do
they perceive that they shine with differently colored rays.
"Those who know Sirius and Betel do not at once perceive that one shines
with a brilliant white light and the other burns with a glowing red, as
different in their brilliancy as the precious stones on a lapidary's
table, perhaps for the same reason. And so there is an endless variety
of tints of paler colors.
"We may turn our gaze as we turn a kaleidoscope, and the changes are
infinitely more startling, the combinations infinitely more beautiful;
no flower garden presents such a variety and such delicacy of shades.
"But beautiful as this variety is, it is difficult to measure it; it has
a phantom-like intangibility--we seem not to be able to bring it under
the laws of science.
"We call the stars garnet and sapphire; but these are, at best, vague
terms. Our language has not terms enough to signify the different
delicate shades; our factories have not the stuff whose hues might make
a chromatic scale for them.
"In this dilemma, we might make a scale of colors from the stars
themselves. We might put at the head of the scale of crimson stars the
one known as Hind's, which is four degrees west of Rigel; we might make
a scale of orange stars, beginning with Betel as orange red; then we
should have
Betelgeuze,
Aldebaran,
ss Ursae Minoris,
Altair and _a_ Canis,
_a_ Lyrae,
the list gradually growing paler and paler, until we come to a Lyrae,
which might be the leader of a host of pale yellow stars, gradually
fading off into white.
"Most of the stars seen with the naked eye are varieties of red, orange,
and yellow. The reds, when seen with a glass, reach to violet or dark
purple. With a glass, there come out other colors: very decided greens,
very delicate blues, browns, grays, and white. If these colors are
almost intangible at best, they are rendered more so by the variations
of the atmosphere, of the eye, and of the glass. But after these are all
accounted for, there is still a real difference. Two stars of the class
known as double stars, that is, so little separated that considerable
optical power is necessary to divide them, show these different tints
very nicely in the same field of the telescope.
"Then there comes in the chance that the colors are complementary; that
the eye, fatigued by a brilliant red in the principal star, gives to the
companion the color which would make up white light. This happens
sometimes; but beyond this the reare innumerable cases of finely
contrasted colors which are not complementary, but which show a real
difference of light in the stars; resulting, perhaps, from
distance,--for some colors travel farther than others, and all colors
differ in their order of march,--perhaps from chemical differences.
"Single blue or green stars are never seen; they are always given as the
smaller companion of a pair.
"Out of several hundred observed by Mr. Bishop, forty-five have small
companions of a bluish, or greenish, or purplish color. Almost all of
these are stars of the eighth to tenth magnitude; only once are both
seen blue, and only in one case is the large one blue. In almost every
case the large star is yellow. The color most prevailing is yellow; but
the varieties of yellow are very great.
"We may assume, then, that the blue stars are faint ones, and probably
distant ones. But as not all faint stars or distant ones are blue, it
shows that there is a real difference. In the star called 35 Piscium,
the small star shows a peculiar snuffy-brown tinge.
"Of two stars in the constellation Ursa Minoris, not double stars, one
is orange and the other is green, both very vivid in color.
"From age to age the colors of some prominent stars have certainly
changed. This would seem more likely to be from change of place than of
physical constitution.
"Nothing comes out more clearly in astronomical observations than the
immense activity of the universe. 'All change, no loss, 'tis revolution
all.'
"Observations of this kind are peculiarly adapted to women. Indeed, all
astronomical observing seems to be so fitted. The training of a girl
fits her for delicate work. The touch of her fingers upon the delicate
screws of an astronomical instrument might become wonderfully accurate
in results; a woman's eyes are trained to nicety of color. The eye that
directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well
bisect a star with the spider web of the micrometer. Routine
observations, too, dull as they are, are less dull than the endless
repetition of the same pattern in crochet-work.
"Professor Chauvenet enumerates among 'accidental errors in observing,'
those arising from imperfections in the senses, as 'the imperfection of
the eye in measuring small spaces; of the ear, in estimating small
intervals of time; of the touch, in the delicate handling of an
instrument.'
"A girl's eye is trained from early childhood to be keen. The first
stitches of the sewing-work of a little child are about as good as those
of the mature man. The taking of small stitches, involving minute and
equable measurements of space, is a part of every girl's training; she
becomes skilled, before she is aware of it, in one of the nicest
peculiarities of astronomical observation.
"The ear of a child is less trained, except in the case of a musical
education; but the touch is a delicate sense given in exquisite degree
to a girl, and her training comes in to its aid. She threads a needle
almost as soon as she speaks; she touches threads as delicate as the
spider-web of a micrometer.
"Then comes in the girl's habit of patient and quiet work, peculiarly
fitted to routine observations. The girl who can stitch from morning to
night would find two or three hours in the observatory a relief."
CHAPTER XII
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS--COMMENTS ON SERMONS--CONCORD SCHOOL--WHITTIER--COOKING
SCHOOLS--ANECDOTES
Partly in consequence of her Quaker training, and partly from her own
indifference towards creeds and sects, Miss Mitchell was entirely
ignorant of the peculiar phrases and customs used by rigid sectarians;
so that she was apt to open her eyes in astonishment at some of the
remarks and sectarian prejudices which she met after her settlement at
Vassar College. She was a good learner, however, and after a while knew
how to receive in silence that which she did not understand.
"Miss Mitchell," asked one good missionary, "what is your favorite
position in prayer?" "Flat upon my back!" the answer came, swift as
lightning.
In 1854 she wrote in her diary:
"There is a God, and he is good, I say to myself. I try to increase my
trust in this, my only article of creed."
Miss Mitchell never joined any church, but for years before she left
Nantucket she attended the Unitarian church, and her sympathies, as long
as she lived, were with that denomination, especially with the more
liberally inclined portion. There were always a few of the teachers and'
some of the students who sympathized with her in her views; but she
usually attended the college services on Sunday.
President Taylor, of Vassar College, in his remarks at her funeral,
stated that all her life Professor Mitchell had been seeking the
truth,--that she was not willing to accept any statement without
studying into the matter herself,--"And," he added, "I think she has
found the truth she was seeking."
Miss Mitchell never obtruded her views upon others, nor did she oppose
their views. She bore in silence what she could not believe, but always
insisted upon the right of private judgment.
Miss W., a teacher at Vassar, was fretting at being obliged to attend
chapel exercises twice a day when she needed the time for rest and
recreation, and applied to Miss Mitchell for help in getting away from
it. After some talk Miss Mitchell said: "Oh, well, do as _I_ do--sit
back folding your arms, and think of something pleasant!"
"Sunday, Dec. 18, 1866. We heard two sermons: the first in the
afternoon, by Rev. Mr. A., Baptist, the second in the evening, by Rev.
Mr. B., Congregationalist.
"Rev. Mr. A. took a text from Deuteronomy, about 'Moses;' Rev. Mr. B.
took a text from Exodus, about 'Moses;' and I am told that the sermon on
the preceding Sunday was about Moses.
"It seems to me strange that since we have the history of Christ in the
New Testament, people continue to preach about Moses.
"Rev. Mr. A. was a man of about forty years of age. He chanted rather
than read a hymn. He chanted a sermon. His description of the journey of
Moses towards Canaan had some interesting points, but his manner was
affected; he cried, or pretended to cry, at the pathetic points. I hope
he really cried, for a weakness is better than an affectation of
weakness. He said, 'The unbeliever is already condemned.' It seems to me
that if anything would make me an infidel, it would be the threats
lavished against unbelief.
"Mr. B. is a self-made man, the son of a blacksmith. He brought the
anvil, the hammer, and bellows into the pulpit, and he pounded and blew,
for he was in earnest. I felt the more respect for him because he was in
earnest. But when he snapped his fingers and said, 'I don't care that
for the religion of a man which does not begin with prayer,' I was
provoked at his forgetfulness of the character of his audience.
"1867. I am more and more disgusted with the preaching that I hear!...
Why cannot a man act himself, be himself, and think for himself? It
seems to me that naturalness alone is power; that a borrowed word is
weaker than our own weakness, however small we may be. If I reach a
girl's heart or head, I know I must reach it through my own, and not
from bigger hearts and heads than mine.
"March, 1873. There was something so genuine and so sincere in George
Macdonald that he took those of us who were _emotional_ completely--not
by storm so much as by gentle breezes.... What he said wasn't profound
except as it reached the depths of the heart.... He gave us such broad
theological lessons! In his sermon he said, 'Don't trouble yourself
about what you _believe_, but _do_ the will of God.' His consciousness
of the existence of God and of his immediate supervision was felt every
minute by those who listened....
"He stayed several days at the college, and the girls will never get
over the good effects of those three days--the cheerier views of life
and death.
"... Rev. Dr. Peabody preached for us yesterday, and was lovely.
Everyone was charmed in spite of his old-fashioned ways. His voice is
very bad, but it was such a simple, common-sense discourse! Mr. Vassar
said if that was Unitarianism, it was just the right thing.
"Aug. 29, 1875. Went to a Baptist church, and heard Rev. Mr. F. 'Christ
the way, the only way.' The sermon was wholly without logic, and yet he
said, near its close, that those who had followed him must be convinced
that this was true. He said a traveller whom he met on the cars admitted
that we all desired heaven, but believed that there were as many ways to
it as to Boston. Mr. F. said that God had prepared but one way, just as
the government in those countries of the Old World whose cities were
upon almost inaccessible pinnacles had prepared one way of approach. (It
occurred to me that if those governments possessed godlike powers, they
would have made a great many ways.)
"Mr. F. was very severe upon those who expect to be saved by their own
deserts. He said, 'You tender a farthing, when you owe a million.' I
could not see what they owed at all! At this point he might well have
given some attention to 'good works;' and if he must mention 'debt,' he
might well remind them that they sat in an unpaid-for church!
"It was plain that he relied upon his anecdotes for the hold upon his
audience, and the anecdotes were attached to the main discourse by a
very slender thread of connection. I felt really sad to know that not a
listener would lead a better life for that sermon--no man or woman went
out cheered, or comforted, or stimulated.
"On the whole, it is strange that people who go to church are no worse
than they are!
"Sept. 26, 1880. A clergyman said, in his sermon, 'I do not say with the
Frenchman, if there were no God it would be well to invent one, but I
say, if there were no future state of rewards and punishments, it would
be better to believe in one.' Did he mean to say, 'Better to believe a
lie'?
"March 27, 1881. Dr. Lyman Abbott preached. I was surprised to find how
liberal Congregational preaching had become, for he said he hoped and
expected to see women at the bar and in the pulpit, although he believed
they would always be exceptional cases. He preached mainly on the
motherhood of God, and his whole sermon was a tribute to womanhood.... I
rejoice at the ideal womanhood of purity which he put before the girls.
I wish some one would preach purity to young men.
"July 1, 1883. I went to hear Rev. Mr. ---- at the Universalist church.
He enumerated some of the dangers that threaten us: one was 'The
doctrines of scientists,' and he named Tyndale, Huxley, and Spencer. I
was most surprised at his fear of these men. Can the study of truth do
harm? Does not every true scientist seek only to know the truth? And in
our deep ignorance of what is truth, shall we dread the search for it?
"I hold the simple student of nature in holy reverence; and while there
live sensualists, despots, and men who are wholly self-seeking, I cannot
bear to have these sincere workers held up in the least degree to
reproach. And let us have truth, even if the truth be the awful denial
of the good God. We must face the light and not bury our heads in the
earth. I am hopeful that scientific investigation, pushed on and on,
will reveal new ways in which God works, and bring to us deeper
revelations of the wholly unknown.
"The physical and the spiritual seem to be, at present, separated by an
impassable gulf; but at any moment that gulf may be overleaped--possibly
a new revelation may come....
"April, 1878. I called on Professor Henry at the Smithsonian Institute.
He must be in his eightieth year; he has been ill and seems feeble, but
he is still the majestic old man, unbent in figure and undimmed in eye.
"I always remember, when I see him, the remark of Dorothy Dix, 'He is
the truest man that ever lived.'
"We were left alone for a little while, and he introduced the subject of
his nearness to death. He said, 'The National Academy has raised
$40,000, the interest of which is for myself and family as long as any
of us live [he has daughters only], and in view of my death it is a
great comfort to me.' I ventured to ask him if he feared death at all.
He said, 'Not in the least; I have thought of it a great deal, and have
come to feel it a friend. I _cherish_ the belief in immortality; I have
suffered much, at times, in regard to that matter.' Scientifically
considered, only, he thought the probability was on the side of
continued existence, as we must believe that spirit existed independent
of matter.
"He went to a desk and pulled out from a drawer an old copy of
'Gregory's Astronomy,' and said, 'That book changed my whole life--I
read it when I was sixteen years old; I had read, previously, works of
the imagination only, and at sixteen, being ill in bed, that book was
near me; I read it, and determined to study science.' I asked him if a
life of science was a good life, and he said that he felt that it was
so.
"... When I was travelling with Miss S., who was near-sighted and kept
her eyes constantly half-shut, it seemed to me that every other young
lady I met had wide, staring eyes. Now, after two years sitting by a
person who never reasons, it strikes me that every other person whom I
meet has been thinking hard, and his logic stands out a prominent
characteristic.
"Aug. 27, 1879. Scientific Association met at Saratoga. ... Professor
Peirce, now over seventy years old, was much the same as ever. He went
on in the cars with us, and was reading Mallock's 'Is Life Worth
Living?' and I asked, 'Is it?' to which Professor Peirce replied, 'Yes,
I think it is.' Then I asked, 'If there is no future state, is life
worth living?' He replied, 'Indeed it is not; life is a cruel tragedy if
there is no immortality.' I asked him if he conceived of the future life
as one of embodiment, and he said 'Yes; I believe with St Paul that
there is a spiritual body....'
"Professor Peirce's paper was on the 'Heat of the Sun;' he considers the
sun fed not by impact of meteors, but by the compression of meteors. I
did not think it very sound. He said some good things: 'Where the truth
demands, accept; what the truth denies, reject.'
"Concord, Mass., 1879. To establish a school of philosophy had been the
dream of Alcott's life; and there he sat as I entered the vestry of a
church on one of the hottest days in August. He looked full as young as
he did twenty years ago, when he gave us a 'conversation' in Lynn.
Elizabeth Peabody came into the room, and walked up to the seat of the
rulers; her white hair streamed over her shoulders in wild carelessness,
and she was as careless as ever about her whole attire, but it was
beautiful to see the attention shown to her by Mr. Alcott and Mr.
Sanborn.
"Emerson entered,--pale, thin, almost ethereal in countenance,--followed
by his daughter, who sat beside him and watched every word that he
uttered. On the whole, it was the same Emerson--he stumbled at a
quotation as he always did; but his thoughts were such as only Emerson
could have thought, and the sentences had the Emersonian pithiness. He
made his frequent sentences very emphatic. It was impossible to see any
thread of connection; but it always was so--the oracular sentences made
the charm. The subject was Memory.' He said, 'We remember the
selfishness or the wrong act that we have committed for years. It is as
it should be--Memory is the police-officer of the universe.' 'Architects
say that the arch never rests, and so the past never rests.' (Was it,
never sleeps?) 'When I talk with my friend who is a genealogist, I feel
that I am talking with a ghost.'
"The little vestry, fitted perhaps for a hundred people, was packed with
two hundred,--all people of an intellectual cast of face,--and the
attention was intense. The thermometer was ninety in the shade!
"I did not speak to Mr. Emerson; I felt that I must not give him a bit
of extra fatigue.
"July 12, 1880. The school of philosophy has built a shanty for its
meetings, but it is a shanty to be proud of, for it is exactly adapted
to its needs. It is a long but not low building, entirely without
finish, but water-tight. A porch for entrance, and a recess similar at
the opposite end, which makes the place for the speakers. There was a
small table upon the platform on which were pond lilies, some shelves
around, and a few busts--one of Socrates, I think.
"I went in the evening to hear Dr. Harris on 'Philosophy.' The rain
began to come down soon after I entered, and my philosophy was not
sufficient to keep me from the knowledge that I had neither overshoes
nor umbrella; I remembered, too, that it was but a narrow foot-path
through the wet grass to the omnibus. But I listened to Dr. Harris, and
enjoyed it. He lauded Fichte as the most accurate philosopher following
Kant--he said not of the greatest _breadth_, but the most acute.
"After Dr. Harris' address, Mr. Alcott made a few remarks that were
excellent, and said that when we had studied philosophy for fifteen
years, as the lecturer had done, we might know something; but as it was,
he had pulled us to pieces and then put us together again.
"The audience numbered sixty persons.
"May, 1880. I have just finished Miss Peabody's account of Channing. I
have been more interested in Miss Peabody than in Channing, and have
felt how valuable she must have been to him. How many of Channing's
sermons were instigated by her questions! ... Miss Peabody must have
been very remarkable as a young woman to ask the questions which she
asked at twenty.
"April, 1881. The waste of flowers on Easter Sunday distressed me.
Something is due to the flowers themselves. They are massed together
like a bushel of corn, and look like red and white sugar-plums as seen
in a confectioner's window.
"A pillow of flowers is a monstrosity. A calla lily in a vase is a
beautiful creation; so is a single rose. But when the rose is crushed by
a pink on each side of it, and daisies crush the pinks, and azaleas
surround the daisies, there is no beauty and no fitness.
"The cathedral had no flowers.
"Aug. 22, 1882. We visited Whittier; we found him at lunch, but he soon
came into the parlor. He was very chatty, and seemed glad to see us.
Mrs. L. was with me, and Whittier was very ready to write in the album
which she brought with her, belonging to her adopted son. We drifted
upon theological subjects, and I asked Mr. Whittier if he thought that
we fell from a state of innocence; he replied that he thought we were
better than Adam and Eve, and if they fell, they 'fell up.'
"His faith seems to be unbounded in the goodness of God, and his belief
in moral accountability. He said, 'I am a good deal of a Quaker in my
conviction that a light comes to me to dictate to me what is right.' We
stayed about an hour, and we were afraid it would be too much for him;
but Miss Johnson, his cousin, who lives with him, assured us that it was
good for him; and he himself said that he was sorry to have us go.