Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 16, 2013

Dec. 14th. {1857} I am beginning to know something of French ways.



1st. The French keep no fires. They have a little fireplace, they burn a little firewood, a little coal but they really do not keep a warm room. If you call on a lady in the morning, she receives you in a cold room. She is wrapped in a shawl, and shivering, you are wrapped in a cloak and shivering . . . .


2nd. Wood is exceedingly dear. Accustomed as I have to a great fire, I built one in my rooms of the American kind the first day I took rooms in Paris. It cost me more than forty cents that day . . . .


That much have been shocking to the owner of the boarding house where Maria Mitchell “took rooms” but perhaps it was a banner day for daily income, or not. As lovers of history know, whether it be European of American history, wood in Europe had become very scarce even by the mid to late 17th century due to its overuse for building and as fuel, thus another push to settle new lands and ship the wood from the forests back to now forest deprived Europe. Obviously. Mitchell learned her lesson on that first day but I can sympathize, working several months of the year in an unheated Mitchell House I could see where she longed to be warm, even if it cost her quite a bit of money. She must have looked quite extravagant, the Quaker-raised woman from Nantucket, but oh the warmth!


JNLF

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