Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and JournalsMitchell, Maria
History
Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals
Mitchell, Maria
Astronomers -- United States -- Biography; Mitchell, Maria, 1818-1889; Women astronomers -- United States -- Biography
"I am jealous for the schools; I have heard a gentleman who stands high
in science declare that the cooking schools would eventually kill out
every literary college in the land--for women. But why not for men? If
the food for the body is more important than the food for the mind, let
us destroy the latter and accept the former, but let us not continue to
do what has been tried for fifteen hundred years,--to keep one half of
the world to the starvation of the mind, in order to feed better the
physical condition of the other half.
"Let us have cooks; but let us leave it a matter of choice, as we leave
the dressmaking and the shoe-making, the millinery and the
carpentry,--free to be chosen!
"There are cultivated and educated women who enjoy cooking; so there are
cultivated men who enjoy Kensington embroidery. Who objects? But take
care that some rousing of the intellect comes first,--that it may be an
enlightened choice,--and do not so fill the day with bread and butter
and stitches that no time is left for the appreciation of Whittier,
letting at least the simple songs of daily life and the influence of
rhythm beautify the dreary round of the three meals a day."
Miss Mitchell had a stock of conundrums on hand, and was a good guesser.
She told her stories at all times when they happened to come into her
mind. She would arrive at her sister's house, just from Poughkeepsie on
a vacation, and after the threshold was crossed and she had said "Good
morning," in a clear voice to be heard by all within her sight, she
would, perhaps, say, "Well, I have a capital story which I must tell
before I take my bonnet off, or I shall forget it!" And there went with
her telling an action, voice, and manner which added greater point to
the story, but which cannot be described. One of her associates at
Vassar, in recalling some of her anecdotes, writes: "Professor Mitchell
was quite likely to stand and deliver herself of a bright little speech
before taking her seat at breakfast. It was as though the short walk
from the observatory had been an inspiration to thought."
She was quick at repartee. On one occasion Charlotte Cushman and her
friend Miss Stebbins were visiting Miss Mitchell at Vassar. Miss
Mitchell took them out for a drive, and pointed out the different
objects of interest as they drove along the banks of the Hudson. "What
is that fine building on the hill?" asked Miss Cushman.--"That," said
Miss Mitchell, "was a boys' school, originally, but it is now used as a
hotel, where they charge five dollars a day!"--"Five dollars a day?"
exclaimed Miss Cushman; "Jupiter Ammon!"--"No," said Miss Stebbins,
"Jupiter Mammon!"--"Not at all," said Miss Mitchell, "Jupiter _gammon!_"
"Farewell, Maria," said an old Friend, "I hope the Lord will be with
thee."
"Good-by," she replied, "I _know_ he will be with you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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