"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 institutions 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 Association 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 embarrassed 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 Mitchell, 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].