“Jan. 9, 1884.  Mr. [Matthew] Arnold has been to the college, and has given his lecture on Emerson.  The audience was made up of three hundred students, and three hundred guests from town.  Never was a man listened to with so much attention.  Whether he is right in his judgment or not, he held his audience by his manly way, his kindly dissection, and his graceful English.  Socially, he charmed us all.  He chatted with every one, he smiled on all.  He said he was sorry to leave the college, and that he felt he must come to America again.  We have not had such an awakening for years.  It was like a new volume of old English poetry.

“March 16, 1885.  In February, 1831, I counted seconds for father, who observed the annular eclipse at Nantucket.  I was twelve and a half years old.  In 1885, fifty-four years later, I counted seconds for a class of students at Vassar; it was the same eclipse, but the sun was only about half-covered.  Both days were perfectly clear and cold.”

CHAPTER X

1873

SECOND EUROPEAN TOUR—­RUSSIA—­FRANCES POWER COBBE—­“THE GLASGOW COLLEGE FOR GIRLS”

In 1873, Miss Mitchell spent the summer in Europe, and availed herself of this opportunity to visit the government observatory at Pulkova, in Russia.

“Eydkuhnen, Wednesday, July 30, 1873.  Certainly, I never in my life expected to spend twenty-four hours in this small town, the frontier town of Prussia.  Here I remembered that our little bags would be examined, and I asked the guard about it, but he said we need not trouble ourselves; we should not be examined until we reached the first Russian town of Wiersbelow.  So, after a mile more of travel, we came to Wiersbelow.  Knowing that we should keep our little compartment until we got to St. Petersburg, we had scattered our luggage about; gloves were in one place, veil in another, shawl in another, parasol in another, and books all around.

“The train stopped.  Imagine our consternation!  Two officials entered the carriage, tall Russians in full uniform, and seized everything—­shawls, books, gloves, bags; and then, looking around very carefully, espied W’s poor little ragged handkerchief, and seized that, too, as a contraband article!  We looked at one another, and said nothing.  The tall Russian said something to us; we looked at each other and sat still.  The tall Russians looked at one another, and there was almost an official smile between them.

“Then one turned to me, and said, very distinctly, ‘Passy-port.’  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘the passports are all right; where are they?’ and we produced from our pockets the passports prepared at Washington, with the official seal, and we delivered them with a sort of air as if we had said, ‘You’ll find that they do things all right at Washington.’