Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals | Page 7

half light, and I made a hasty toilet. I made a fire very
quickly, prepared the coffee, baked the graham bread, toasted white
bread, trimmed the solar lamp, and made another fire in the
dining-room before seven o'clock.
"I always thought that servant-girls had an easy time of it, and I still
think so. I really found an hour too long for all this, and when I rang the
bell at seven for breakfast I had been waiting fifteen minutes for the
clock to strike.
"I went to the Atheneum at 9.30, and having decided that I would take
the Newark and Cambridge places of the comet, and work them up, I
did so, getting to the three equations before I went home to dinner at
12.30. I omitted the corrections of parallax and aberrations, not
intending to get more than a rough approximation. I find to my sorrow
that they do not agree with those from my own observations. I shall
look over them again next week.
"At noon I ran around and did up several errands, dined, and was back
again at my post by 1.30. Then I looked over my morning's work,--I
can find no mistake. I have worn myself thin trying to find out about
this comet, and I know very little now in the matter.
"I saw, in looking over Cooper, elements of a comet of 1825 which
resemble what I get out for this, from my own observations, but I
cannot rely upon my own.

"I saw also, to-day, in the 'Monthly Notices,' a plan for measuring the
light of stars by degrees of illumination,--an idea which had occurred to
me long ago, but which I have not practised.
"October 23. Yesterday I was again reminded of the remark which Mrs.
Stowe makes about the variety of occupations which an American
woman pursues.
"She says it is this, added to the cares and anxieties, which keeps them
so much behind the daughters of England in personal beauty.
"And to-day I was amused at reading that one of her party objected to
the introduction of waxed floors into American housekeeping, because
she could seem to see herself down on her knees doing the waxing.
"But of yesterday. I was up before six, made the fire in the kitchen, and
made coffee. Then I set the table in the dining-room, and made the fire
there. Toasted bread and trimmed lamps. Rang the breakfast bell at
seven. After breakfast, made my bed, and 'put up' the room. Then I
came down to the Atheneum and looked over my comet computations
till noon. Before dinner I did some tatting, and made seven
button-holes for K. I dressed and then dined. Came back again to the
Atheneum at 1.30, and looked over another set of computations, which
took me until four o'clock. I was pretty tired by that time, and rested by
reading 'Cosmos.' Lizzie E. came in, and I gossiped for half an hour. I
went home to tea, and that over, I made a loaf of bread. Then I went up
to my room and read through (partly writing) two exercises in German,
which took me thirty-five minutes.
"It was stormy, and I had no observing to do, so I sat down to my
tatting. Lizzie E. came in and I took a new lesson in tatting, so as to
make the pearl-edged. I made about half a yard during the evening. At a
little after nine I went home with Lizzie, and carried a letter to the
post-office. I had kept steadily at work for sixteen hours when I went to
bed."

CHAPTER II
1847-1854
MISS MITCHELL'S COMET--EXTRACTS FROM DIARY--THE
COMET
Miss Mitchell spent every clear evening on the house-top "sweeping"
the heavens.
No matter how many guests there might be in the parlor, Miss Mitchell
would slip out, don her regimentals as she called them, and, lantern in
hand, mount to the roof.
On the evening of Oct. 1, 1847, there was a party of invited guests at
the Mitchell home. As usual, Maria slipped out, ran up to the telescope,
and soon returned to the parlor and told her father that she thought she
saw a comet. Mr. Mitchell hurried upstairs, stationed himself at the
telescope, and as soon as he looked at the object pointed out by his
daughter declared it to be a comet. Miss Mitchell, with her usual
caution, advised him to say nothing about it until they had observed it
long enough to be tolerably sure. But Mr. Mitchell immediately wrote
to Professor Bond, at Cambridge, announcing the discovery. On
account of stormy weather, the mails did not leave Nantucket until
October 3.
Frederick VI., King of Denmark, had offered, Dec. 17, 1831, a gold
medal of the value of twenty ducats