Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 26, 2015

October 17, 1854 I have just gone over my comet computation again and it is humiliating to perceive how very little more I know than I did 7 years ago when I first did this kind of work. To be sure I have only once in the time computed a parabolic orbit but it seems to me that I know no more in general. I think I am a little better thinker, that I take things less upon trust but at the same time I trust myself much less. The world of learning is so broad and the human side is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve but we seize hold only of a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us. Will it really unroll to us at some future time? Aside from gratification of the affections in another world, that of the intellect must be great, if it is enlarged and its desires are the same.


Maria Mitchell discovered a telescopic comet on October 1, 1847 and was awarded a gold medal from the King of Denmark for her discovery – the first woman and the first and only American. I think this quote also reveals a little more about her personality and the fact that she was always very hard on herself – she was a “plugger,” one who had to work hard but she did have an incredible mind and a unique way of looking at everything.


JNLF

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Lynn, Ap. 25 1869  My dear President, I am not sure I told you how long I must be away from the College. If I took only the Sunday’s rest, it would be possible for me to reach the Obs. By Tuesday, but I feel the need of more than one day of quiet, before I enter upon the new and incomprehensible life before me . . . William Mitchell died on April 19, 1869 and for the first time, Maria Mitchell was alone. Save for her trip to the southern United States and Europe in 1857 and 1858, her father was always by her side. She did not know much of a day in her life without him nearby and she knows that. It was difficult for her – and her siblings worried about her and this new world she was now in. She had been – expect for that trip – the caregiver for both of her parents. Her mother, Lydia Coleman Mitchell, died in 1861 on Nantucket and Maria had cared for her as well. She was the child who became the caregiver of the family – both in her youth as her siblings sought her out for care, humor, love, and adventures while their mother was busy with younger children and household duties – and then her parents as the only child who did not marry and remained by their sides. JNLF
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