Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals - Maria Mitchell
"There are three instruments; an excellent transit instrument of six and
a half inches' aperture, resting on its y's of solid granite. The
corrections of the errors of the instrument by means of little screws
are given up, and the errors which are known to exist are corrected in
the computations.
"Professor Smyth finds that although the two pillars upon which the
instrument rests were cut from the same quarry, they are unequally
affected by changes of temperature; so that the variation of the azimuth
error, though slight, is irregular.
"The collimation plate they correct with the micrometer, so that they
consider some position-reading of the micrometer-head the zero point,
and correct that for the error, which they determine by reflection in a
trough of mercury. With this instrument they observe on certain stars of
the British Catalogue, whose places are not very well determined, and
with a mural circle of smaller power they determine declinations.
"The observatory possesses an equatorial telescope, but it is of mixed
composition. The object glass was given by Dr. Lee, the eye-pieces by
some one else, and the two are put together in a case, and used by
Professor Smyth for looking at the craters in the moon; of these he has
made fine drawings, and has published them in color prints.
"The whole staff of the observatory consists of Professor Smyth, Mr.
Wallace, an old man, and Mr. Williamson, a young man.
"The city of Edinboro' has no amateur astronomers, and there are two
only, of note, in Scotland: Sir William Bisbane and Sir William Keith
Murray.
"From the observatory, the view of Edinboro' is lovely. 'Auld Reekie,'
as the Scotch call it, always looks her best through a mist, and a
Scotch mist is not a rare event--so we saw the city under its most
becoming veil.
"October, 1857. I stopped in Glasgow a few hours, and went to the
observatory, which is also the private residence of Professor Nichol.
Miss Nichol received me, and was a very pleasant, blue-eyed young lady.
"I found that the observatory boasts of two good instruments: a meridian
circle, which must be good, from its appearance, and a Newtonian
telescope, differently mounted from any I had seen; cased in a
composition tube which is painted bright blue--rather a striking object.
The iron mounting seemed to me good. It was of the German kind, but
modified. It seemed to me that it could be used for observations far
from the meridian. The iron part was hollow, so that the clock was
inside, as was the azimuth circle, and thus space was saved.
"They have a wind and rain self-register, and a self-registering
barometer, marking on a cylinder turned by a clock, the paper revolving
once an hour.
"When I was at Dungeon Ghyll, a little ravine among the English lakes,
down which trickles an exceedingly small stream of water, but which is,
nevertheless, very picturesque,--as I followed the old man who shows it
for a sixpence, he asked if we had come a long way. 'From America,' I
replied. 'We have many Americans here,' said he; 'it is much easier to
understand their language than that of other foreigners; they speak very
good English, better than the French or Germans.'
"I felt myself a little annoyed and a good deal amused. I supposed that
I spoke the language that Addison wrote, and here was a Westmoreland
guide, speaking a dialect which I translated into English before I could
understand it, complimenting me upon my ability to speak my own tongue.
"I learned afterwards, as I journeyed on, to expect no appreciation of
my country or its people. The English are strangely deficient in
curiosity. I can scarcely imagine an Englishwoman a gossip.
"I found among all classes a knowledge of the extent of America; by the
better classes its geography was understood, and its physical
peculiarities. One astronomer had bound the scientific papers from
America in green morocco, as typical of a country covered by forests.
Among the most intelligent men whom I met I found an appreciation of the
different characters of the States. Everywhere Massachusetts was
honored; everywhere I met the horror of the honest Englishman at the
slave system; but anything like a discriminating knowledge of our public
men I could not meet. Webster had been heard of everywhere. They assured
me that our _really great_ men were known, our really great deeds
appreciated; but this is not true. They make mistakes in their measure
of our men; second-rate men who have travelled are of course known to
the men whom they have met; these travellers have not perhaps thought it
necessary to mention that they represent a secondary class of people,
and they are considered our 'first men.' The English forget that all
Americans travel.
"I was vexed when I saw some of our most miserable novels, bound in
showy yellow and red, exposed for sale. A friend told me that they had
copied from the cheap publications of America. It may be so, but they
have outdone us in the cheapness of the material and the showy covers. I
never saw yellow and red together on any American book.
"The English are far beyond us in their highest scholarship, but why
should they be ignorant of our scholars? The Englishman is proud, and
not without reason; but he may well be proud of the American offshoot.
It is not strange that England produces fine scholars, when we consider
that her colleges confer fellowships on the best undergraduates.
"England differs from America in the fact that it has a past. Well may
the great men of the present be proud of those who have gone before
them; it is scarcely to be hoped that the like can come after them; and
yet I suppose we must admit that even now the strong minds are born
across the water.
"At the same time England has a class to which we have happily no
parallel in our country--a class to which even English gentlemen liken
the Sepoys, and who would, they admit, under like circumstances be
guilty of like enormities. But the true Englishman shuts his eyes for a
great part of the time to the steps in the social scale down which his
race descends, and looks only at the upper walks. He has therefore a
glance of patronizing kindness for the people of the United States, and
regards us of New England as we regard our rich brethren of the West.
"I wondered what was to become of the English people! Their island is
already crowded with people, the large towns are numerous and are very
large. Suppose for an instant that her commerce is cut off, will they
starve? It is an illustration of moral power that, little island as that
of Great Britain is, its power is the great power of the world.
"Crowded as the people are, they are healthy. I never saw, I thought, so
many ruddy faces as met me at once in Liverpool. Dirty children in the
street have red cheeks and good teeth. Nowhere did I see little children
whose minds had outgrown their bodies. They do not live in the
school-room, but in the streets. One continually meets little children
carrying smaller ones in their arms; little girls hand in hand walk the
streets of London all day. There are no free schools, and they have
nothing to do. Beggars are everywhere, and as importunate as in Italy.
For a well-behaved common people I should go to Paris; for clean
working-women I should look in Paris.
"I saw a little boy in England tormenting a smaller one. He spat upon
his cap, and then declared that the little one did it. The little one
sobbed and said he didn't. I gave the little one a penny; he evidently
did not know the value of the coin, and appealed to the bigger boy. 'Is
it a penny?' he asked, with a look of amazement. 'Yes,' said the bigger.
Off ran the smaller one triumphant, and the bigger began to cry, which I
permitted him to do."
CHAPTER VII
1857-1858
FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR CONTINUED--LEVERRIER AND THE PARIS
OBSERVATORY--ROME--HARRIET HOSMER--OBSERVATORY OF THE COLLEGIO
ROMANO--SECCHI
At this time, the feeling between astronomers of Great Britain and those
of the United States was not very cordial. It was the time when Adams
and Leverrier were contending to which of them belonged the honor of the
discovery of the planet Neptune, and each side had its strong partisans.
Among Miss Mitchell's papers we find the following with reference to
this subject:
"... Adams, a graduate of Cambridge, made the calculations which showed
how an unseen body must exist whose influences were felt by Uranus. It
was a problem of great difficulty, for he had some half-dozen quantities
touching Uranus which were not accurately known, and as many wholly
unknown concerning the unseen planet. We think it a difficult question
which involves three or four unknown quantities with too few
circumstances, but this problem involved twelve or thirteen, so that x,
y, z reached pretty high up into the alphabet. But Adams, having worked
the problem, carried his work to Airy, the Astronomer Royal of England,
and awaited his comments. A little later Leverrier, the French
astronomer, completed the same problem, and waiting for no authority
beyond his own, flung his discovery out to the world with the
self-confidence of a Frenchman....
"... When the news of the discovery of Neptune reached this country, I
happened to be visiting at the observatory in Cambridge, Mass. Professor
Bond (the elder) had looked for the planet the night before I arrived at
his house, and he looked again the evening that I came.
"His observatory was then a small, round building, and in it was a small
telescope; he had drawn a map of a group of stars, one of which he
supposed was not a star, but the planet. He set the telescope to this
group, and asking his son to count the seconds, he allowed the stars to
pass by the motion of the earth across the field. If they kept the
relative distance of the night before, they were all stars; if any one
had approached or receded from the others, it was a planet; and when the
father looked at his son's record he said, 'One of those has moved, and
it is the one which I thought last night was the planet.' He looked
again at the group, and the son said, 'Father, do give me a look at the
new planet--you are the only man in America that can do it!' And then we
both looked; it looked precisely like a small star, and George and I
both asked, 'What made you think last night that it was the new planet?'
Mr. Bond could only say, 'I don't know, it looked different from the
others.'
"It is always so--you cannot get a man of genius to explain steps, he
leaps.
"After the discovery of this planet, Professor Peirce, in our own
country, declared that it was not the planet of the theory, and
therefore its discovery was a happy accident. But it seemed to me that
it was the planet of the theory, just as much if it varied a good deal
from its prescribed place as if it varied a little. So you might have
said that Uranus was not the Uranus of the theory.
"Sir John Herschel said, 'Its movements have been felt trembling along
the far-reaching line of our analysis, with a certainty hardly inferior
to ocular demonstration.' I consider it was superior to ocular
demonstration, as the action of the mind is above that of the senses.
Adams, in his study at Cambridge, England, and Leverrier in his closet
at Paris, poring over their logarithms, knew better the locus of that
outside planet than all the practical astronomers of the world put
together....
"Of course in Paris I went to the Imperial Observatory, to visit
Leverrier. I carried letters from Professor Airy, who also sent a letter
in advance by post. Leverrier called at my hotel, and left cards; then
came a note, and I went to tea.
"Leverrier had succeeded Arago. Arago had been a member of the
Provisional Government, and had died. Leverrier took exactly opposite
ground, politically, to that of Arago; he stood high with the emperor.
"He took me all over the observatory. He had a large room for a
ballroom, because in the ballroom science and politics were discussed;
for where a press is not free, salons must give the tone to public
opinion.
"Both Leverrier and Madame Leverrier said hard things about the English,
and the English said hard things about Leverrier.
"The Astronomical Observatory of Paris was founded on the establishment
of the Academy of Sciences, in the reign of Louis XIV. The building was
begun in 1667 and finished in 1672; like other observatories of that
time, it was quite unfit for use.
"John Dominie Cassini came to it before it was finished, saw its
defects, and made alterations; but the whole building was afterwards
abandoned. M. Leverrier showed me the transit instrument and the mural
circle. He has, like Mr. Airy, made the transit instrument incapable of
mechanical change for its corrections of error, so that it depends for
accuracy upon its faults being known and corrected in the computations.
"All the early observatories of Europe seem to have been built as
temples to Urania, and not as working-chambers of science. The Royal
Observatory at Greenwich, the Imperial Observatory of Paris, and the
beautiful structure on Calton Hill, Edinboro', were at first wholly
useless as observatories. That of Greenwich had no steadiness, while
every pillar in the astronomical temple of Edinboro', though it may tell
of the enlightenment of Greece, hides the light of the stars from the
Scottish observer. Well might Struve say that 'An observatory should be
simply a box to hold instruments.'
"The Leverriers speak English about as well as I do French, and we had a
very awkward time of it. M. Leverrier talked with me a little, and then
talked wholly to one of the gentlemen present. Madame was very chatty.
"Leverrier is very fine-looking; he is fair-haired full-faced,
altogether very healthy-looking. His wife is really handsome, the
children beautiful. I was glad that I could understand when Leverrier
said to the children, 'If you make any more noise you go to bed.'
"While I was there, a woman as old as I rushed in, in bonnet and shawl,
and flew around the room, kissed madame, jumped the children about, and
shook hands with monsieur; and there was a great amount of screaming and
laughing, and all talked at once. As I could not understand a word, it
seemed to me like a theatre.
"I asked monsieur when I could see the observatory, and he answered,
'Whenever it suits your convenience.'
"December 15. I went to Leverrier's again last evening by special
invitation. Four gentlemen and three ladies received me, all standing
and bowing without speaking. Monsieur was, however, more sociable than
before, and shrieked out to me in French as though I were deaf.
"The ladies were in blue dresses; a good deal of crinoline, deep
flounces, high necks, very short, flowing sleeves, and short
undersleeves; the dresses were brocade and the flounces much trimmed,
madame's with white plush.
"The room was cold, of course, having no carpet, and a wood fire in a
very small fireplace.
"The gentlemen continued standing or promenading, and taking snuff.
"Except Leverrier, no one of them spoke to me. The ladies all did, and
all spoke French. The two children were present again--the little girl
five years old played on the piano, and the boy of nine played and sang
like a public performer. He promenaded about the room with his hands in
his pockets, like a man. I think his manners were about equal to
-----'s, as occasionally he yelled and was told to be quiet.
"About ten o'clock M. Leverrier asked me to go into the observatory,
which connects with the dwelling. They are building immense additional
rooms, and are having a great telescope, twenty-seven feet in focal
length, constructed.
"With Leverrier's bad English and my bad French we talked but little,
but he showed me the transit instrument, the mural circle, the
computing-room, and the private office. He put on his cloak and cap, and
said, 'Voila le directeur!'
"One room, he told me, had been Arago's, and Arago had his bed on one
side. M. Leverrier said, 'I do not wish to have it for my room.' He is
said to be much opposed to Arago, and to be merciless towards his
family.
"He showed me another room, intended for a reception-room, and explained
to me that in France one had to make science come into social life, for
the government must be reached in order to get money.
"There were huge globes in one room that belonged to Cassini. If what he
showed me is not surpassed in the other rooms, I don't think much of
their instruments.
"M. Leverrier said he had asked M. Chacornac to meet me, but he was not
there. I felt that we got on a little better, but not much, and it was
evident that he did not expect me to understand an observatory. We did
not ascend to the domes.
"Leverrier has telegraphic communication with all Europe except Great
Britain.
"It was quite singular that they made such different remarks to me.
Leverrier said that they had to make science popular.
"Airy said, 'In England there is no astronomical public, and we do not
need to make science popular.'
"Jan. 24, 1858. I am in Rome! I have been here four days, and already I
feel that I would rather have that four days in Rome than all the other
days of my travels! I have been uncomfortable, cold, tired, and
subjected to all the evils of travelling; but for all that, I would not
have missed the sort of realization that I have of the existence of the
past of great glory, if I must have a thousand times the discomfort. I
went alone yesterday to St. Peter's and the Vatican, and today, taking
Murray, I went alone to the Roman Forum, and stood beside the ruined
porticos and the broken columns of the Temple. Then I pushed on to the
Coliseum, and walked around its whole circumference. I could scarcely
believe that I really stood among the ruins, and was not dreaming! I
really think I had more enjoyment for going alone and finding out for
myself. Afterwards the Hawthornes called, and I took Mrs. H. to the same
spot....
"I really feel the impressiveness of Rome. All Europe has been serious
to me; Rome is even sad in its seriousness. You cannot help feeling, in
the Coliseum, some little of the influence of the scenes that have been
enacted there, even if you know little about them; you must remember
that the vast numbers of people who have been within its walls for ages
have not been common minds, whether they were Christian martyrs or
travelling artists....
"I think if I had never heard before of the reputation of the pictures
and statues of the Vatican, I should have perceived their superiority.
There is more idea of _action_ conveyed by the statuary than I ever
received before--they do not seem to be _dead_.
"January 25. I have finer rooms than I had in Paris, but the letting of
apartments is better managed in Paris. There you always find a
_concierge_, who tells you all you want to know, and who speaks several
languages. In Rome you enter a narrow, dark passage, and look in vain
for a door. Then you go up a flight of stairs, and see a door with a
string; you pull the string, and a woman puts her mouth to a square
hole, covered with tin punctured with holes, and asks what you want. You
tell her, and she tells you to go up higher; you repeat the process, and
at last reach the rooms. The higher up the better, because you get some
sun, and one learns the value of sunlight. I saw no sun in Paris in my
room, and here I have it half of the day, and it seems very pleasant.
"All the customs of the people differ from those of Paris....
"A little of Italian art enters into the ornaments of rooms and
furniture, but anything like mechanical skill seems to be unheard of;
and I dare say the pretty stamp used on the butter I have, which
represents some antique picture, was cut by some northern hand. I could
make a better cart than those that I see on the streets, and I could
_almost_ make as good horses as those that draw them!...
"It is Holy Week. I have spent seven hours at a time at St. Peter's, in
terrible crowds, for ten days, and now I go no more. The ladies are
seated, but as the ceremonies are in different parts of the immense
building, they rush wildly from one to the other; with their black veils
they look like furies let loose! I stayed five hours to-day to see the
Pope wash feet, which was very silly; for I saw mother wash them much
more effectually twenty years ago!
"The crowd is better worth seeing than the ceremony, if one could only
see it without being in it. I shall not try to hear the 'Miserere'--I
have given up the study of music! Since I failed to appreciate Mario, I
sha'n't try any more!
"I go to the Storys' on Sunday evening to look at St. Peter's lighting
up.
"March 21. I have been to vespers at St. Peter's. They begin an hour
before sunset. When my work is done for the day, I walk to St. Peter's.
This is Sunday, and the floor was full of kneeling worshippers, but that
makes no difference. I walk about among them.
"I was there an hour to-day before I saw a person that I knew; then I
met the Nicholses and went with them into a side chapel to hear vespers.
Then I saw next the Waterstons, then Miss Lander; but I was unusually
short of friends, I generally meet so many more.
"There were kneeling women to-day with babies in their arms. The babies
of the lower classes have their legs so wrapped up that they cannot move
them; they look like small pillows even when they are six months old. I
think it must dwarf them. We Americans are a tall people. I am a very
tall woman here. I think that P.'s height would cause a sensation in the
streets. My servant admires my height very much.
"March 22. I called on Miss Bremer to-day, having heard that she desired
to see me. She is a 'little woman in black,' but not so plain; her face
is a little red, but her complexion is fair and the expression very
pleasing. She chatted away a good deal; asked me about astronomy, and
how I came to study it. I told her that my father put me to it, and she
said she was just writing a story on the affection of father and
daughter. She told me I had good eyes. It is a long time now since any
one has told me that!
"Miss Bremer and Mrs. W. met in my room and remained an hour. Miss
Bremer is quiet and unpretending. Mrs. W. is flashy and brilliant, and,
as I usually say when I don't understand a person, a little insane; she
had the floor all the time after she came in. She gave a sketch of her
life from her birth up, mentioning incidentally that she had been a
belle, surrounded with beaux, the pride of her parents, with a
reputation for intellect, etc.
"I had been urging Miss Bremer into an interesting talk before Mrs. W.
appeared, and I felt what a pity it was that she hadn't the same
propensity to talk that the latter had. She talked very pleasantly,
however, and I thought what a pity it was that I shall not see her
again; for I leave Rome in three days for Florence.
"I was in Rome for a winter, an idler by necessity for six weeks. It is
the very place of all the world for an idler.
"On the pleasant days there are the ruins to visit, the Campagna to
stroll over, the villas and their grounds to gather flowers in, the
Forum to muse in, the Pincian Hill or the Capitoline for a gossiping
walk with some friend.
"On rainy days it is all art. There are the cathedrals, the galleries,
and the studios of the thousand artists; for every winter there are a
thousand artists in Rome.
"A rainy day found me in the studio of Paul Akers. As I was looking at
some of his models, the studio door opened and a pretty little girl,
wearing a jaunty hat and a short jacket, into the pockets of which her
hands were thrust, rushed into the room, seemingly unconscious of the
presence of a stranger, began a rattling, all-alive talk with Mr. Akers,
of which I caught enough to know that a ride over the Campagna was
planned, as I heard Mr. Akers say, 'Oh, I won't ride with you--I'm
afraid to!' after which he turned to me and introduced Harriet Hosmer.
"I was just from old conservative England, and I had been among its most
conservative people. I had caught something of its old musty-parchment
ideas, and the cricket-like manners of Harriet Hosmer rather troubled
me. It took some weeks for me to get over the impression of her madcap
ways; they seemed childish.
"I went to her studio and saw 'Puck,' a statue all fun and frolic, and I
imagined all was fun to the core of her heart.
"As a general rule, people disappoint you as you know them. To know them
better and better is to know more and more weaknesses. Harriet Hosmer
parades her weaknesses with the conscious power of one who knows her
strength, and who knows you will find her out if you are worthy of her
acquaintance. She makes poor jokes--she's a little rude--a good deal
eccentric; but she is always _true_.
"In the town where she used to live in Massachusetts they will tell you
a thousand anecdotes of her vagaries--but they are proud of her.
"She does not start on a false scent; she knows the royal character of
the game before she hunts.
"A lady who is a great rider said to me a few days since: 'Of course I
do not ride like Harriet Hosmer, but, if you will notice, there is
method in Harriet Hosmer's madness. She does not mount a horse until she
has examined him carefully.'