wn calculations? and some of
his Aunt Caroline's writing. Had she been rich or handsome simply,
Alexander Von Humboldt would not have taken her to his home, and,
seating himself beside her on the sofa, talked, as she says, "on
all manner of subjects, and on all varieties of people. He spoke of
Kansas, India, China, observatories; of Bache, Maury, Gould, Ticknor,
Buchanan, Jefferson, Hamilton, Brunow, Peters, Encke, Airy, Leverrier,
Mrs. Somerville, and a host of others."

What, if he had said these things to some women who go abroad! It is
safe for women who travel to read widely, for ignorance is quickly
detected. Miss Mitchell said of Humboldt: "He is handsome--his hair
is thin and white, his eyes very blue. He is a little deaf, and so is
Mrs. Somerville. He asked me what instruments I had, and what I was
doing; and when I told him that I was interested in the variable
stars, he said I must go to Bonn and see Agelander."

There was no end of courtesies to the scholarly woman. Professor
Adams, of Cambridge, who, with his charming wife, years afterward
helped to make our own visit to the University a delight, showed
her the spot on which he made his computations for Neptune, which
he discovered at the same time as Leverrier. Sir George Airy, the
Astronomer Royal of England, wrote to Leverrier in Paris to announce
her coming. When they met, she said, "His English was worse than my
French."

Later she visited Florence, where she met, several times, Mrs.
Somerville, who, she says, "talks with all the readiness and clearness
of a man," and is still "very gentle and womanly, without the least
pretence or the least coldness." She gave Miss Mitchell two of her
books, and desired a photographed star sent to Florence. "She had
never heard of its being done, and saw at once the importance of such
a step." She said with her Scotch accent, "Miss Mitchell, ye have done
yeself great credit."

In Rome she saw much of the Hawthornes, of Miss Bremer, who was
visiting there, and of the artists. From here she went to Venice,
Vienna, and Berlin, where she met Encke, the astronomer, who took her
to see the wedding presents of the Princess Royal.

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, in an admirable sketch of Miss Mitchell, tells
how the practical woman, with her love of republican institutions,
was impressed. "The presents were in two rooms," says Miss Mitchell,
"ticketed and numbered, and a catalogue of them sold. All the
manufacturing companies a