The Story of the Herschels Part 4

At times her brother was enabled to dispense with her attendance. You would suppose that such leisure nights she would gladly give up to rest.

Not she. Her brother might, at some unforeseen moment, require her aid, and consequently she preferred to be close at hand. A seven-foot telescope planted on the lawn helped to while away the hours of waiting; and it was to the occupation of these hours that science owed the discovery of the comet of 1786, of the comet of 1788, of the comet of 1791, of the comet of 1793, and of that of 1795, now connected with the name of Encke. Many, also, of the nebulae contained in Sir William Herschel's catalogues were detected by her keen and accurate gaze during these nights of lonely observation. Indeed, as South remarked, when looking at the joint-labours of these two enthusiasts, we scarcely know whether the warmer praise should be given to the intellectual might of the brother or the ardent industry of the sister.

In 1797, continued her eulogist, she presented to the Royal Society a catalogue of 560 stars, taken from Flamsteed's observations, the exact positions of which had not been previously defined.

Soon after the death of him to whom she had given up so much of her life, her best energies, and her ripest faculties, she returned to Hanover,--unwilling, however, to relinquish the astronomical researches which had been so pure and permanent a source of pleasure. She undertook and completed the laborious "reduction" or registration of the places of 2500 nebulae, down to the 1st of January 1800; thus presenting in one view the results of all the observations Sir William Herschel had made upon those wonderful bodies, and triumphantly bringing to a close half a century of scientific toil.

We return to Miss Herschel's biography, in order to gather up a few particulars of her last years, and to exhibit some of the tenderer features of her character.

On the occasion of her nephew's marriage, in 1829, she wrote to him in the following terms:--

"MY DEAREST NEPHEW,--I have spent four days in vain endeavours to gain composure enough to give you an idea of the joyful sensation your letter of February 5th has caused me. But I can at this present moment find no words which would better express my happiness than those which escaped in exclamation from my lips, according to Simeon (see St. Luke ii. 29), 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'

"I have now some hopes of pa.s.sing the few remainder of my days in as much comfort as the separation from the land where I spent the greatest portion of my life, and from all those which are most dear to me, can admit. For, from the description given me of the dear young lady of your choice, I am confident my dear nephew's future happiness is now established.

"I beg you will give my love to your dear lady, and best regards to all your new connections where they are due, in the best terms you can think of, for I am at present too unwell for writing all I could wish to say.

"I have suffered much during this severe winter, and have not been able to leave my habitation above three or four times for the last three months; and feel, moreover, much fatigued by sitting eight times within the last ten days to Professor Tiedemann for having my picture taken--which he did at my apartment, and now he has taken it home to finish. I must conclude, for I wish to say a few words to your dear mother. It is now between eleven and twelve, and perhaps you are at this very moment receiving the blessing of Dr. Jennings; in which I most fervently join by saying, 'G.o.d bless you both!'"

Though eighty-three years old, Miss Herschel retained all her old powers of memory; and in a letter to her new niece, Lady Herschel, written in 1833, she narrated some amusing reminiscences of her nephew's early childhood.

He was only in his sixth year, she said, when she was separated for a while from the family circle. But this did not hinder "John" and her from remaining the most affectionate friends, and many a half or whole holiday he spent with her, devoting it to chemical experiments, in which all kinds of boxes, tops of tea-canisters, pepper-cruets, tea-cups, and the like, served for the necessary vessels, and the sand-tub furnished the matter to be a.n.a.lysed. Miss Herschel's task was to prevent the introduction of water, which would have produced havoc on her carpet.

For his first notion of building, "John" was indebted to the affection of his aunt, who, on his second or third birthday, lifted him in the trenches to lay the south corner-stone of the building which was added to Sir William's original house at Slough. On further reflection, she felt convinced that this incident occurred in the second year of her nephew's age, for she remembered being obliged to use "a deal of coaxing" to make him part with the money he was to lay on the comer-stone.

About the same time, when she was sitting near him one day, listening to his prattle, her attention was drawn to his repeated and formidable hammering. On investigating into its object, she found that it was the continuation of the labour of many days, during which he had undermined the ground about the corner of the house, had entirely removed the corner-stone, and was zealously toiling to overthrow the next! His aunt gave the alarm, and old John Wilts.h.i.+re, a favourite carpenter, ran to the spot, exclaiming, "Heaven bless the boy! if he is not going to pull the house down!"

In 1834, Sir John, as already stated, made a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, in order to undertake a series of observations of the southern heavens. His aunt had now reached the ripe old age of eighty-four, an age attained by few,--and when attained, bringing with it in almost every case a painful diminution of physical energy, and a corresponding decline in mental force. But such was not the case with this remarkable woman. She still continued an active correspondence with her nephew, and manifested the liveliest interest in all his movements. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to mark the vivacity and clearness of the letters she wrote at this advanced period of her life. Thus, on the 1st of May 1834, she writes to Sir John:--

"Both yourself and my dear niece urged me to write often, and to write always twice; but, alas! I could not overcome the reluctance I felt of [at] telling you that it is over with me for getting up at eight or nine o'clock, dressing myself, eating my dinner alone without an appet.i.te, falling asleep over a novel (I am obliged to lay down to recover the fatigue of the morning's exertions), awaking with nothing but the prospect of the trouble of getting into bed, where very seldom I get above two hours' sleep. It is enough to make a parson swear! To this I must add, I found full employment for the few moments, when I could rouse myself from a melancholy lethargy, to spend in looking over my store of astronomical and other memorandums of upwards of fifty years' collecting."

Later in the year she writes:--

"I know not how to thank you sufficiently for the cheering account you give of the climate agreeing so well with you and all who are so dear to me, and that you find all about you so agreeable and comfortable;... so that I have nothing left to wish for but a continuation of the same, and that I may only live to see the handwriting of your dear Caroline, though I have my doubts about lasting till then, for the thermometer standing 80 and 90 for upwards of two mouths, day and night, in nay rooms (to which I am mostly confined), has made great havoc in my brittle const.i.tution. I beg you will look to it that she learns to make her figures as you find them in your father's MSS., such as he taught me to make. The daughter of a mathematician must write plain figures.

"My little grand-nephew making alliance with your workmen shows that he is taking after his papa. I see you now in idea, running about in petticoats among your father's carpenters, working with little tools of your own; and John Wilts.h.i.+re (one of Pitt's men, whom you may perhaps remember) crying out, 'Dang the boy, if he can't drive in a nail as well as I can!'

"I thank you for the astronomical portion of your letter, and for your promise of future accounts of uncommon objects. It is not _cl.u.s.ters of stars_ I want you to discover in the body of the Scorpion [the astronomical sign, so called], or thereabout, for that does not answer my expectation, remembering having once heard your father, after a long, awful silence, exclaim, 'Hier ist wahrhaftig ein loch ein Himmel!' [Here, indeed, is a great gap in Heaven!], and, as I said before, stopping afterwards at the same spot, but leaving it unsatisfied."

These extracts may seem trivial to some of our readers, but they are not so, rightly considered. They ill.u.s.trate the wonderful mental vivacity of their venerable writer, and in this respect are useful; but still more useful in showing how cheerfully she bore the burden of her years, and with what intellectual serenity she looked forward to her end.

We own that the lives of the Herschels are what the world would call uneventful. The discovery of a new planet, or of the orbit of a star, seems less romantic to the vulgar taste than the slaughter of ten thousand men on a field of battle. It will seem to the unthinking that the victorious general or the daring seaman, the leader of a forlorn hope, or the captain who goes down with his sinking s.h.i.+p, affords an example worthier of imitation than the patient, watchful, enthusiastic astronomer or his devoted sister. _His_, they will say, was a n.o.ble life. Be it so; but every life is n.o.ble which is spent in the path of duty. Do what comes to your hand to do with all honesty and completeness, and you will make _your_ life n.o.ble. Subdue your pa.s.sions, master your evil thoughts, observe the laws of temperance and purity, be truthful, be firm, be honest, and keep ever before you the law of Christ as the law of your daily work, and you will make _your_ life n.o.ble. We cannot all be great commanders or daring captains, we cannot all be distinguished men of science; but we can all be righteously-living men, endeavouring to raise others by our example, and it is a higher aim to live purely than to live successfully. We cannot all command the success, just as we do not all enjoy the intellectual powers, of a Herschel; but we can emulate the industry and perseverance of the astronomer, we can copy the devoted affection and self-denial of his sister. The sorriest mistake of which men can be guilty,--yet it is a mistake which has clouded many lives,--is to suppose that duty is less imperative in its claims on the humble and unknown than on men raised or born to eminent position. Let it be understood and remembered that each one of us can rise to a standard of true heroism, by cultivating the graces of the Christian character, and doing the work which G.o.d has appointed.

Sir John Herschel returned to England in 1838, and in July of the same year he and his little son paid a visit to Miss Herschel. It is characteristic that her intense anxiety as to the proper treatment of her little grand-nephew--his sleep, his food, his playthings--greatly disturbed her peace. "I rather suffered him," she writes, "to hunger, than would let him eat anything hurtful; indeed, I would not let him eat anything at all unless his papa was present." Her biographer remarks, that great as was her joy to see once more almost the only living being upon whom she poured some of that wealth of affection with which her heart never ceased to overflow, yet it was on the disappointments and shortcomings of those few days, those precious days, that she chiefly dwelt; and the abrupt termination of her nephew's visit filled her with the deepest sorrow. With the generous, but, as it proved, mistaken intention of sparing her feelings, her nephew left without informing her beforehand of the exact time of his departure, simply bidding her good-night prior to his return to his inn. Great was her distress when she found that he and his son had quitted Hanover at four o'clock on the following morning.

Her introduction to her grand-nephew, as described by his father, Sir John, was exceedingly quaint:--

"Now, let me tell you how tilings fell out. Dr. Groskopff took Willie with him to Aunty, but without saying who he was. Says she, 'What little boy is that?' Says he, 'The son of a friend of mine. Ask him his name.' However, Willie would not tell his name. 'Where do you come from, little fellow?' 'From the Cape of Good Hope,' says Willie. 'What is that he says?' 'He says he comes from the Cape of Good Hope.' 'Ay! and who is he? What is his name?' 'His name is Herschel.' 'Yes,'says Willie. 'What is that he says?' 'He says he comes from the Cape of Good Hope.'

'Ay! and who is he? What is his name?' 'His name is Herschel.'

'Yes,' says Willie, 'William James Herschel.' 'Ach, mem Gott!

das nicht moglich; ist dieser kleines neffeu's sohn?' And so it all came out; and when I came to her all was understood, and we sat down and talked as quietly as if we had parted but yesterday."

In a letter which she wrote to Lady Herschel in 1838, we find some reminiscences of her early years. She says that when, at the age of twenty-two, she first visited England, there was no kind of ornamental needle-work, knitting, plaiting hair, stringing beads and bugles, and the like, of which she did not make samples by way of mastering the art.

As she was the only girl, and consequently the Cinderella, of the family, she could not find time, however, for much self-improvement. She was not, for instance, a skilled musician, but she was able to play the second violin part of an overture or easy quartette. And it is worth notice that the Herschels were something more than astronomers only.

Both Sir William and his son, great as they were in their special department of science, took care to cultivate their minds generally; were mathematicians, chemists, geologists, and men of letters. And here is a lesson for our younger readers. The mind should always be diverted towards one particular object; it should be the aim of everybody to attain towards supreme excellence, if possible, in some one pursuit. On the other hand, he should gather knowledge, more or less, in every field, so as to avoid narrowness of view and poverty of idea.

Versatility does not necessarily mean superficiality; we may know much of many things, and more of one thing. A man who is only a botanist, shuts himself out from all the truest and deepest pleasures of knowledge. It may be very clever for a violinist to play on a single string; but he must play on _all_, if he would bring out the full harmonies of his instrument, and do justice to its extraordinary powers.

Miss Herschel's enjoyment of life, which, when not carried to an excess, is a Christian duty, continued to the very last. When she was in her ninetieth year, she rose as usual every day, dressed, ate, drank, rested on her sofa, read and conversed with her numerous visitors; still taking an interest in science and literature, even in public affairs, and still occupying herself with all that concerned the evergrowing reputation of her nephew. Of course, she could not escape the infirmities of old age, but by cheerfulness and patience she did her best to alleviate them. In recalling incidents of her early life, she frequently gave evidence of her good-humoured contentment. In 1840, writing to her niece, she refers to an incident which occurred in the early part of the forty-foot telescope's existence, when "G.o.d save the King" was sung in it by her brother and his guests, who rose from the dinner-table for the purpose, and entered the tube in procession. She adds that among the company were two Misses Stows, one of whom was a famous pianoforte player; some of the Griesbachs (well-known musicians), who accompanied on the oboe, or any instrument they could get hold of; and herself, who was one of the nimblest and foremost to get in and out of the tube. "But now," she adds, "lack-a-day! I can hardly cross the room without help. But what of that? Dorcas, in the _Beggar's Opera_, says, 'One cannot eat one's cake and have it too!'"

She relates, in the same letter, a curious anecdote of the old and celebrated tube. Before the optical apparatus was finished, many visitors took a pleasure in walking through it,--among the rest, on one occasion, King George III. and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The latter following the king, and finding it difficult to proceed, his majesty turned and gave him his hand, saying, "Come, my Lord Bishop; I will show you the way to heaven!"

Then, with that astonis.h.i.+ng memory of hers, which kept its greenness until the very last, she notes that this occurred on August 17, 1787, when the King and Queen, the Duke of York, and some of the princesses were of the company.

From another letter we take a lively little picture of a Christmas in Hanover:--

She had been told that keeping Christmas in the German sense was coming to be very general in England; but her shrewd, practical turn of mind induced her to hope that the English would never go "such lengths in foolery." At Hanover, she wrote, the tradespeople had been for many weeks in full employ, framing and mounting the embroideries of the ladies and girls of all cla.s.ses; of _all_ cla.s.ses, for not a folly or extravagancy existed among the great but it was imitated by the little.

The shops were beautifully lighted up by gas, and the last three days before Christmas all that could tempt or attract was exhibited in the market-places in booths lighted up in the evening, whither everybody hastened to gaze and to spend their money. Cooks and housemaids presented one another with knitted bags and purses; the cobbler's daughter embroidered "neck-cus.h.i.+ons" for her friend the butcher's daughter. These were made up by the upholsterer at great expense, lined with white satin; the upper part, on which the back rested, being wrought with gold, silver, and pearls.

But we must no longer delay the reader by our gossip. Enough has been said to ill.u.s.trate the character of a remarkable woman, and of those features of it--her cheerfulness, her patience, her industry, her devoted affection, her unselfishness--which all of us may be the better for studying and imitating. Our limits compel us to draw our simple narrative to a close, and we must pa.s.s over the delight with which she received and read Sir John Herschel's great work, "Cape Observations,"--a n.o.ble monument of the perseverance and strenuous labour of genius; but of twofold interest to her, because it not only testified to the eminent qualities of her nephew, but brought to a n.o.ble conclusion the vast undertaking of that nephew's father and her own beloved brother--the survey of the nebulous heavens.

A letter written by her friend Miss Becksdorff, on the 6th of January 1848, describes Caroline Herschel's last days:--

"Her decided objection to having her bed placed in a warmer room had brought on a cold and cough; and so firm was her determination to preserve her old customs, and not to yield to increasing infirmities, that when, upon her doctor's positive orders, I had a bed made up in her room, before she came to sit in it one day, it was not till two o'clock in the night that Betty could persuade her to lie down in it. Upon going to her the next morning, I had the satisfaction, however, of finding her perfectly reconciled to the arrangement; she now felt the comfort of being undisturbed, and she has kept to her bed ever since. Her mental and bodily strength is gradually declining.

But a few days ago she was ready for a joke. When Mrs. Clarke told her that General Halkett sent his love, and 'hoped she would soon be so well again that he might come and give her a kiss, as he had done on her birthday,' she looked only archly at her, and said, 'Tell the general that I have not tasted anything since I liked so well.' I have just left her, and upon my asking her to give me a message for her nephew, she said, 'Tell them I am good for nothing,' and went to sleep again."

On the 9th of January 1848 she breathed her last, pa.s.sing away with a Christian's tranquillity.[1]

[Footnote 1: The particulars recorded in the foregoing pages are chiefly taken from Mrs. John Herschel's very interesting "Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel."]

Her body was followed to the grave by many of her relatives and friends, the royal carriages forming part of the funeral procession. The coffin was adorned with garlands of laurel and cypress and palm branches, sent by the Crown-Princess from Herrnhausen; and the service was conducted in that same garrison-church in which, nearly a century before, she had been christened, and afterwards confirmed. And, as proving her love and fidelity to the last, in her coffin were placed, by her express desire, "a lock of her beloved brother's hair, and an old, almost obliterated almanac that had been used by her father."