Earliest Years at Vassar: Personal Recollections

by Frances Ann Wood

I came upon her one day comparing with vexed expression her watch with the lodge clock:—"Better no clock there at all than one always a little wrong." "But why do you mind? You are not to blame—have nothing to do with it." She turned quickly, her eyes flashing,—"How would you like to hear bad English used persistently in your class all the time in spite of yourself? This clock affects me the same way!"

Once as her associate teacher left the room where we were sitting in the observatory, Miss Mitchell looked after her lovingly,—"Mary Whitney is perfection, but she has one fault. She doesn't always shut the door behind her."

She appreciated gifts of flowers, and trifles that she could share, but once refused a lovely vase to stand on her study table,—"I should have to dust it." Hearing her speak of wishing to see a volume of essays by John Weiss, the book was purchased and carried over to her. Later she returned it with thanks,—"I have read this with much enjoyment. Now take it home and keep it. I do not want to accumulate things—too much trouble when I come to break up."

It was the day of illuminated texts and mottoes. Miss Mitchell had no fancy for these, yet in her neat hand-printing is this on a card to slip under a paper-weight—still a prized possession,—"Disce ut semper victurus; Vive ut cras moriturus." In her free translation it read,—"Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die to-morrow." She was much amused to be told of a serious minded student who had decorated her room profusely with Scripture texts, and without the slightest sense of humor had placed on her wardrobe door a conspicuous "Seek and ye shall find." "Most likely not find," commented Miss Mitchell drily.

Concerning charitable work among so-called "fallen women," her attitude seemed rather cold and unforgiving in contrast to her well known views. "I can pity, forgive and help, but I want to let them alone. I don't like things that have been dragged through the mud."

Her standards were merciless. "Middlemarch" was, in her opinion, an immoral book;—"Dorothea had no business to have had even a feeling of interest in Ladislaw. What if it did go no further, you say? She was a married woman." That settled it. And yet, Miss Mitchell admired George Eliot and condoned her marriage with Lewes, as a woman too grand intellectually to be subject to the petty verdict of the world's opinion. She would not relish the "problem" novel of to-day, and the aggressive methods of the modern suffragette would receive scant toleration.

There is a characteristic story of her appearing at the open window of an inside bedroom, and making a friend for life of the startled occupant by exclaiming of a little sketch in color just finished and hung on the wardrobe door to dry,—"Why, this is —— a man in science. I know him well. Excellent. Who did this? You?" Another time when the sunset was more brilliant than common, she would knock on all the doors of the corridor she was passing through, to call out any one who otherwise would miss the spectacle. Homesick "new girls" on the well known first north transverse rejoiced in her, and blessed her for want of ceremony in rapping on their doors nearly every day the first week or two with the cheery inquiry, "How are you getting on?" and "Can I help you in any way?"

How she loved children! And they all loved her. Noticing the little son of one of the professors gathering daisies in the field near the observatory one afternoon, she called to him,—"You may go into my garden and pick some flowers there, but be sure not to take any of the roses." When the delighted child appeared to her later, she saw to her great surprise his arms filled with them. "Didn't I say you were not to pick my roses?" "Didn't know they were roses," said the boy innocently, amusing her greatly. "It takes a little five year old to crawl out of a tight place."

Miss Mitchell disliked form, the silent grace at table being even a little objectionable to her. "I wonder what they all say when they put their heads down? As for me"—and her eyes gleamed with fun—"I have just time to say one line of 'The spacious firmament on high.'"

We went out to dinner one Sunday together. She asked me beforehand what time I had ordered the carriage to bring us home. I named the hour. "Put it an hour earlier. I shall enjoy every moment up to that time, but I am afraid I cannot be polite any longer."