342 MARIA MITCHELL. 



the expectation of her friend, Dr. Channing, ' Worship God with what 

 he most delights in, with aspiration for spii-itual light and life.' 



" But it would be vain for me to try to tell you just what it was in 

 Miss Mitchell that attracted us who loved her j it was this combina- 

 tion of great strength and independence, of deep affection and tender- 

 ness, breathed through and through with the sentiment of a perfect 

 life, which has made for us one of the pilgrim shrines of life the study 

 in the Observatory of Vassar College, where we have known her 

 at home surrounded by the evidences of her honorable professional 

 career. She has been an impressive figure in our time, and one 

 whose influence lives. 



" This leads me to say a few words of her worth as a teacher. Her 

 life became a strong influence in the lives of her devoted students. It 

 was not that she impressed on them any peculiar views of hers ; I 

 have seen small evidence of that ; but she wrought into their souls 

 something of her own genuineness, her hatred for all shams in college, 

 in social life, her love of truth, her honest search after it. Many are 

 those who will carry her impress as long as they live, who gained 

 from her a new inspiration, and who look back to that beautiful vine- 

 clad observatory as a birthplace of new life in their souls. I feel the 

 inadequacy of all I can say, as I think of the troop of young women 

 grown to matronly dignity, teachers, wives, mothers, members of so- 

 ciety, who would bid me say more, while she, m her simplicity of life 

 and taste, would have me say far less. 



" I have spoken as a friend of the traits of Maria Mitchell which 

 have most impressed me in the three years of my close personal ac- 

 quaintance with her. But I should not forget that I am the spokes- 

 man of others, of Trustees, and Faculty, and students of the College 

 she served so faithfully. ... A cloud of witnesses gathers about me, 

 a great company of them have known and loved her, and have felt the 

 power of her character and life." 



Relative to the " doubts " referred to by Dr. Taylor, we remember 

 them as self-conscious misgivings concerning another life. We do not 

 remember that these misgivings ever included her father, whose cheer- 

 ful faith and clear intellect, continuing to the last hour of his life, ad- 

 mitted only the transient shadow of an eclipse. Miss Mitchell once 

 asked Mr, Whittier if he was perfectly confident of his immortality. 

 The poet waived his own personal claims, and responded, " 1 cannot 

 conceive that the soul of Maria Mitchell can ever die" 



After recording the generous appreciation that seemed to follow 

 promptly upon every visible effort made by Miss Mitchell, and the 



