Angelo Hall

“ On the other hand Angeline frequently appears embarrassed, though her unusual powers of will never suffer her to make a failure. Lydia is ambitious; though she pursues the object of her ambition in a quiet, complacent way, and appropriates it when secured all as a matter of course. It is possible with Angeline to be ambitious, but not at once—and never so naturally. Her ambition is born of many-yeared wishes—wishes grounded mainly in the moral nature, cherished by friendly encouragements, ripening at last into a settled purpose. ”

“ There is one master link in the family bond, as there is one keystone in the arch. Often we know not its binding power until it is taken away. Then the home begins to crumble and fall into confusion, and the distinct atoms, like beads from a broken string, roll off into distant corners. We turn our thoughts to one who made the ideal home, pervaded it, filled its every part like air and sunshine coming in at open windows, as unobtrusive as gentle. A spiritual attraction drew all to this centre. It was not what she said or did; it was what she was that inclined footsteps to her door. ”

“ AN AMERICAN WOMAN. The desire of knowledge is a powerful instinct of the soul, as inherent in woman as in man.... It was designed to be gratified, all the avenues of her soul are open for its gratification. Her every sense is as perfect as man’s: her hand is as delicate in its touch, her ear as acute in hearing, her eye the same in its wonderful mechanism, her brain sends out the same two-fold telegraphic network. She is endowed with the same consciousness, the same power of perception. Every attribute of his soul is hers also. ”

“ John Pierpont is here. He preached in the chapel Sunday forenoon. He is a fine looking man. I wish you could see him. He is over seventy years old, but is as straight as can be, and his face is as fresh as a young man’s.
Little did she dream that this ardent patriot would one day march into Washington at the head of a New Hampshire regiment, and break bread at her table. Nor could she foresee that her college friends Oscar Fox and A. J. Warner would win laurels on the battlefields of Bull Run and Antietam, vindicating their faith with their blood. ”

“ Let me live, let me die a fanatic. I will not seal up in my heart the fountain of love that gushes forth for all the human race. And I am glad I am here because there are none here to say, “thus far thou mayst ascend the hill of Science and no farther,” when I have just learned how sweet are the fruits of knowledge, and when I can see them hanging in such rich clusters, far up the heights, looking so bright and golden, as if they were inviting me to partake. ”

“ In thinking of Galileo, and the office of the telescope, which is to give us increase of light, and of the increasing power of the larger and larger lenses, which widens our horizon to infinity, this constantly recurring thought comes to me: how shall we grow into the immensity that is opening before us? The principle of light pervades all space—it travels from star to star and makes known to us all objects on earth and in heaven. ”

“ He handled his tools as only carpenters of his day and generation were used to handle them, making doors, blinds, and window-sashes, as well as hewing timbers for the frames of houses. Monuments of his handiwork, in the shape of well-built houses, are to be seen in Connecticut and Massachusetts to this day. Like other young men of ability, he was becomingly modest, and his boss, old Peter Bogart, used to say with a twinkle in his eye, that of all the men in his employ, Asaph Hall was the only one who didn’t know more than Peter Bogart. ”

“ There was once a young man who made fun of a red-haired woman and used to say to his companions, “Get ready, get ready,” till Reddy got him! No doubt the little god scored a point when Asaph Hall saw Angeline Stickney solemnly parading in the “bloomer” costume. Good humor was one of the young man’s characteristics, and no doubt he had a hearty laugh at the young lady’s expense. But Dan Cupid contrived to have him pursue a course in geometry taught by Miss Stickney; and, to make it all the merrier, entangled him in a plot to down the teacher by asking hard questions. ”

“ Love in a cottage is sweeter and more prosperous when the cottage stands a hundred miles or more from the homes of relatives. How can wife cleave unto husband when mother lives next door? And how can husband prosper when father pays the bills? It was a fortunate piece of hard luck that Angeline Hall saw little of her people. As it was, her sympathy and interest constantly went out to mother and sisters. This is seen from her letters. In one she threatened to rescue her mother from the irate Mr. Woodward by carrying her off bodily to Cambridge. ”

“ LOVE IN A COTTAGE. Miss Sarah Waitt, a Cambridge school-teacher of beautiful character, and firm friend of Angeline Hall, once said, after an acquaintance of thirty years or more, that she had never known of a happier married life than that of Mr. and Mrs. Hall. And yet these lovers quarreled!
The husband was opposed to woman suffrage. He opposed his wife’s writing poetry—not from an aversion to poetry, but because poetry inferior to the best is of little value. The wife, accustomed as an invalid to his thoughtful attentions, missed his companionship as health returned. ”

“ Each may rightfully lay claim to the name of poetess. But Lydia is much the better known in this respect. Perhaps the constitution of her mind inclines her more strongly to employ the ornaments of verse, in expressing her thoughts; and perhaps the mind of Angeline has been too much engrossed in scientific studies to allow of extensive English reading, or of patient efforts at elaboration. Hence her productions reveal the poet only; while those of her friend show both the poet and the artist. In truth, Lydia is by nature far more artificial than Angeline—perhaps I should have said artistic. ”

“ He brought to his tasks the vigor of an unspoiled youth, spent in the open air. He worked as only a man of mature strength can work, and he comprehended as only a man of keen, undulled intellect can comprehend. His ability as a scholar called forth the admiration of fellow-students and the encouragement of teachers. The astronomer Brünnow, buried in the wilds of Michigan, far from his beloved Germany, recognized in this American youth a worthy disciple, and Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, father of American astronomy, promptly adopted Asaph Hall into his scientific family. ”

“ And then we find that these glittering specks are vast suns, pressing on in their shining courses, sun around sun, and system around system, in harmony, in beauty, in grandeur; and as we view them spread out in their splendour and infinity, we pause to think of Him who has formed them, and we feel his greatness and excellence and majesty, and in contemplating Him, the most sublime object in the universe, our own souls are expanded, and filled with awe and reverence and love. ”

“ The materials of poetry must ever remain the same and inexhaustible. Poetry has its origin in the nature of man, in the deep and mysterious recesses of the human soul. It is not the external only, but the inner life, the mysterious workmanship of man’s heart and the slumbering elements of passion which furnish the materials of poetry.
Finally, because of the subject, I quote the following:
The study of Astronomy gives us the most exalted views of the Creator, and it exalts ourselves also, and binds our souls more closely to the soul of the Infinite. ”

“ When Percival, coasting down one of the steep hills of Georgetown, ran into a street car and was brought home half stunned, with one front tooth knocked out and gone and another badly loosened, Angeline Hall repaired to the scene of the accident early the next morning, found the missing tooth, and had the family dentist restore it to its place. There it has done good service for twenty years. Is it any wonder that such a woman should have insisted upon her husband’s discovering the satellites of Mars? ”

“ How beautiful is our world now in this sweet month, beautiful flowers beautiful forests, beautiful fields, beautiful birds, and murmuring brooks and rainbows and clouds and then again the clear blue sky without clouds or rainbows, or stars, smiling in its own calm loveliness Oh yes! this Earth is beautiful, and so exquisitely beautiful that I sometimes feel that there is in it enough of beauty to feast my eyes forever. ”

“ At the Cambridge Observatory the Prince of Wales had once appeared, but on that occasion the young astronomer was made to feel less than nobody. Now the great War President, who signed his commission in the United States Navy, talked with him face to face. One night soon afterward, when alone in the observing tower, he heard a knock at the trap door. He leisurely completed his observation, then went to lift the door, when up through the floor the tall President raised his head. Lincoln had come unattended through the dark streets to inquire why the moon had appeared inverted in the telescope. ”

“ Rough and crude was the civilization into which she was born. Bears still haunted the woods and gathered blackberries in the more remote fields. In a deep ravine Angeline’s sister Elmina encountered a wild-cat. Matches were not yet in use. Spinning-wheel and household loom supplied the farmer’s homespun clothing. For salt Grandfather Cook drove sixty miles to Syracuse. Bigoted religion was rampant, with forenoon and afternoon services, and a five-mile drive in Grandfather’s wagon. Aunt Clary Downs, one of Elisha Cook’s daughters, kept a dream-book ”

“ It is gravitation. It imparts the power of one to all, and gathers from all for the one. What in the soul answers to these two principles is, first, also light or knowledge, by which all things are unveiled; the other which answers to gravitation, and before which all shall come into proper relations, and 110into the heavenly harmony, and by which we shall fill the heavens with ourselves, and ourselves with heaven, is love.
This is better than most philosophy. But after all, Angeline Hall gave herself to duty and not to philosophy—to the plain, monotonous work of home and neighborhood. ”

“ When I see the slack, shilly-shally, expensive way the Government has of doing everything, it appears impossible that it should ever succeed in beating the Rebels.
He soon became disgusted at the wire-pulling in Washington, and wrote contemptuously of the “American astronomy” then cultivated at the Naval Observatory. But he decided to make the best of a bad bargain; and his own work at Washington has shed a lustre on American astronomy. ”

“ An examination of the literature of the planet showed, however, such a mass of observations of various kinds, made by the most experienced and skillful astronomers that the chance of finding a satellite appeared to be very slight, so that I might have abandoned the search had it not been for the encouragement of my wife.
In fact, Mrs. Hall was full of enthusiasm. Each night she sent her husband to the observatory supplied with a nourishing lunch, and each night she awaited developments with eager interest. I can well remember the excitement at home. ”

“ The secret of social progress lies in the division of labor. And the secret of success and great achievement in the Hall household lay in the division of labor. At an early date Mr. Hall confined his attention to astronomy, and Mrs. Hall confined hers to domestic cares. The world gained a worthy astronomer. Did it lose a reformer-poetess? Possibly. But it was richer by one more devoted wife and mother.
From the spring of 1859 to the end of their stay in Cambridge, that is, for three years, the Halls occupied the cozy little Bond cottage, at the top of Observatory Hill. ”

“ The composition on slavery (like the mention of the telescope) is in the nature of a prophecy, for our astronomer’s wife during her residence of thirty years in Washington was an unfailing friend of the negro. Many a Northerner, coming into actual contact with the black man, has learned to despise him more than Southerners do. Not so Angeline. The conviction of childhood, born of reading church literature on slavery and of hearing her step-father’s indignant words on the subject—for he was an ardent abolitionist—lasted through life. ”

“ When I speak of the ambition of these two, I hope to be understood as meaning ambition with its true feminine modifications. And this is the contrast:—The ambition of the one is a necessity of her nature, the ripening of every hour’s aspiration; while the ambition of the other is but the fortunate afterthought of an unsophisticated wish. ”