Chapter VI: LIFE IN HANOVER—continued (3)

But now all is well; your dear letter will make me happy for some time to come, and in my next I will more fully reply to it, when I hope to be more composed than I am just now, as the day after to-morrow will be my birthday, when I, _perhaps_, enter on my eighty-third year. I am always at the return of that day what one may call “hipt,” and therefore must destroy my thoughts any how as well as I can.

I kept my dear nephew’s birthday last week, the 7th of March, by thinking of you throughout the whole day. When I was at dinner, I made my maid stand opposite to me, and pouring her out a glass of wine, made her say, Sir John Herschel, lebe hoch! (for ever).

But I must hasten to say that which I wish you to know as soon as possible, which is, to beg of all things not to send the parcel the good Miss B. intended for me. I suppose it may consist of some dress of my dear departed sister.... I beg your acceptance of it for a remembrance of us both; it would vex me to add anything I set store on, only to leave it to those I cannot esteem.

* * * * *

I am much obliged to my dear nephew for sending the few pages announcing the publications of the Royal Society. It is only such morsels as these which keep up a desire for living any longer. But the premium of the King of Denmark’s medal, for the discovery of telescopic comets, provokes me beyond all endurance, for it is of no use to me. One of my eyes is nearly dark, and I can hardly find the line again I have just been tracing by feeling on paper.

Pray do not forget me when my nephew’s recension of Mrs. Somerville’s works makes its appearance....

TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _April 20, 1832_.

MY DEAREST NEPHEW,—

* * * * *

My dear niece has promised me your article[45] on the writings of Mrs. Somerville. I hope she will not forget it, nor you the Catalogue of double stars. Such things make me very happy, but of any expensive publications I would not wish you to throw away upon me _now_; it makes me only grudge to think of having to leave them in the hands of blockheads. But if you have anything for Göttingen, Encke, or Bessel, it amuses me to forward it. Olbers has been dangerously ill for some time; they tell me he is too fat, and lives too well.

I only write this by way of announcing the parcel, that you may inquire for it should it not come to hand in due time, else I am very tired, and must yet make up the parcel, and I want to show myself once more to-morrow evening at the Oratorio, as it is for the poor, and will be the last performance this season....

[Sidenote: 1832. _Letter from Hanover._]

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _June 19, 1832_.

... I found my aunt wonderfully well and very nicely and comfortably lodged, and we have since been on the full trot. She runs about the town with me and skips up her two flights of stairs as light and fresh at least as _some folks_ I could name who are not a fourth part of her age.... In the morning till eleven or twelve she is dull and weary, but as the day advances she gains life, and is quite “fresh and funny” at ten or eleven, p.m., and sings old rhymes, nay, even dances! to the great delight of all who see her.... It was only this evening that, escaping from a party at Mrs. Beckedorff’s, I was able to indulge in what my soul has been yearning for ever since I came here—a solitary ramble out of town, among the meadows which border the Leine-strom, from which the old, tall, sombre-looking Markt-thurm and the three beautiful lanthorn-steeples of Hanover are seen as in the little picture I have often looked at with a sort of mysterious wonder when a boy as that strange place in foreign parts that my father and uncle used to talk so much about, and so familiarly. The _likeness_ is correct, and I soon found the point of view.

Yesterday, being the anniversary of Waterloo, there was a great military _spectacle_ here in a large esplanade, where there is erected a tall and very pretty column, with a bronze “Victory” at the top, hopping on one leg. A few guns were fired, a sermon preached, the veil of the statue (shown for the first time) pulled off by the Duke of Cambridge, and a good dinner eaten by 350 personages, of which number I had the honour to be one unit, in a vast saloon in the Herrenhauser Palace, about the length, breadth, and height of St. George’s Hall, at Windsor, the Duke presiding and giving the toasts, &c., in honour of the Waterloo heroes. The saloon was ornamented most curiously with guns, swords, and pikes, arranged in patterns, and with Waterloo trophies, and a panoramic view of the field of Waterloo in compartments. No ladies were admitted to the table, and (what say you to the gallantry of the Hanoverian military?) there was no ball in the evening, nor _any_ the _slightest_ provision for the amusement or participation of the fair. So Mars and Venus, I suppose, have had a “tiff!” Adieu.

[Sidenote: 1832-1833. _Her Life in Hanover._]

TO LADY HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _Dec. 4, 1832_.

MY DEAREST NIECE,—

I shall in future, when I have anything to say to my dear nephew address myself to you, well knowing his time is too precious for spending even on reading.... Thank him most heartily for the “Edinburgh Review,” and the description of the wonderful machine.... But here is the _grievance_—I cannot possibly read the Review, my sight is almost lost, and I must wait till Miss Beckedorff or somebody can read to me.... Dr. Tias, who travelled through Hanover, called on me to-day. He talked strangely about my nephew’s intention of going to the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Hausmann told me some weeks ago that the _Times_ contained the same report, to which I replied, “It is a lie!” but what I heard from Dr. Tias to-day makes me almost believe it possible. Ja! if I was thirty or forty years younger, and could go too? in Gottes nahmen! But I will not think about it till you yourself tell me more of it, for I have enough to think of my cramps, blindness, sleepless nights, &c.

TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _March 30, 1833_.

MY DEAREST NEPHEW,—

Ever since the 6th of March, the day on which I received my dear niece’s of the 26th of February, I have been enabled to dispel by its comfortable contents the gloomy reflections with which I am on the return of your and my birthdays assailed. But being obliged to spend such days alone, at a distance from all who are dear to us; or, what would be worse, in the presence of beings of uncongenial feelings, one is apt to fall again into the dismals, which the return of the late snow and frosty weather prevented my taking recourse to my usual remedy, which is to turn all grievances into a joke. Your birthday I celebrated exactly like that of 1832, viz., after dinner I jingled glasses with Betty, and made her say, “Es lebe Sir John! hoch![46] hurrah!” She went in the kitchen to wash the dishes, and I with a book (a silly novel) in my hand on the sofa asleep!...

I begin to be confused, and had rather say nothing of the thousand things which are running in my head, and which all must be said within the next six months. As yet I can follow your steps and proceedings, for I read the papers—the _Globe_—and saw that in June is the meeting in Cambridge.... From these papers I also see how all my valuable acquaintances drop off one after another. Captain Kater has lost his wife, the fine singer; Mrs. Parry; Lady Harcourt; your dear mother, are gone—the latter three of my own age, and I must hold out!

TO LADY HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _August 1, 1833_.

* * * * *

I have now the pleasure of thanking my nephew for his valuable book of astronomy, having actually received it by yesterday’s post, and by a kind letter from Professor Schumacher. I learn that I may yet hope to see the promised Catalogue of nebulæ and double stars, to the perusal of which I look forward as a solace during the time you will be on your way _far, far_ from us. But these treasures cause me no little thinking about in whose hands I shall leave them when I cannot see them any longer, but cannot think of anyone I should like to leave them in preference to the Duke of Cambridge.

I cannot find words which would express sufficient thanks to my dear nephew for his last letter, every line of which conveys a comfort.

* * * * *

P.S.—Dear Nephew, as soon as your instrument is erected I wish you would see if there was not something remarkable in the lower part of the Scorpion to be found, for I remember your father returned several nights and years to the same spot, but could not satisfy himself about the uncommon appearance of that part of the heavens. It was something more than a total absence of stars (I believe). But you will have seen by the register that those lower parts could only be marked _half swept_. I wish you health and good success to all you undertake, and a happy return to a peaceful home in old England. God bless you all!

[Sidenote: 1833. _Retrospection._]

TO THE SAME.

_Sept. 6, 1833._

MY DEAR NIECE,—

Eight days are already gone since the arrival of your dear letter of August 21st, and I can hardly muster up composure enough at this moment to reply to it, because my ideas are still, what they ever have been, more occupied with future or past events than what passes immediately about me. At present my thoughts are wholly fixed on the busy scenes with which you are at present surrounded, and regretting that I am not with you to afford you any assistance, or to take charge of my nephew’s workshops, as I used to do of his father’s when absent; or that it is not possible to shake off some thirty years from my shoulders that I might accompany you on your voyage.

In answer to your query about my nephew’s building a grotto of coals I must plead ignorance, but have no doubt many an edifice of that kind has daily been erected and erased without my being present, for my dear nephew was only in his sixth year when I came to be detached from the family circle. But this did not hinder _John_ and _I_ from remaining the most affectionate friends, and many a half or whole holiday he was allowed to spend with me, was dedicated to making experiments in chemistry, where generally all boxes, tops of tea-canisters, pepper-boxes, teacups, &c., served for the necessary vessels, and the sand-tub furnished the matter to be analysed. I only had to take care to exclude water, which would have produced havoc on my carpet. And for his first notion of building I believe he is indebted to me, for it was on his second or third birthday when I lifted him in the trenches to lay the south corner-stone of the building which was added to the original house at Slough. It must have been the second year of his age, for I remember I was obliged to use a deal of coaxing to make him part with the money he was to lay on the brick.

About the same time, when one day I was sitting beside him, listening to his prattle, my attention was drawn by his hammering to see what he might be about, and found that it was the continuation of many days’ labour, and that the ground about the corner of the house was undermined, the corner-stone entirely away, and he was hard at work going on with the next. I gave the alarm, and old John Wiltshire, a favourite carpenter, came running, crying out, “God bless the boy, if he is not going to pull the house down!” (Our John was this man’s pet, he taught him to handle the tools). A bricklayer came directly with brick and mortar to mend the damage.

I was called to my solitary dinner just when I was going to give you a few specimens of my nephew’s poetry; I have some by me, composed when about eight or nine years old, in a most shocking handwriting; but generally about this time I am so sleepy that I think it will be best to give you the continuation in a posthumous letter from C. H. to Lady M. B. Herschel, to be delivered to her on her return from the Cape....

If I only live long enough to have the assurance of your _all_ being well and safely got to the Cape, I will lay down my head in peace.

My paper is not filled, but there is not time for writing more, nor do I like to think about the present; but about a month ago I began a day-book again, which I was in the habit of keeping when in England, and with the contents of that I intend to fill my posthumous letter to you.

God bless you, my dear niece ... and with my love to my dear nephew and yourself,

I remain,
Your most affectionate aunt,
CAR. HERSCHEL.

[Sidenote: 1833. _To Professor Schumacher._]

TO PROFESSOR SCHUMACHER.

_Dec. 11, 1833._

DEAR SIR,—

By recollecting your former obliging kindness to me, I am encouraged once more to intrude on your valuable time by transcribing part of my nephew’s last letter, dated from Portsmouth, November 10th:—“The last proof sheet of my nebulæ paper left my hands the night I left London, and yesterday I got twelve copies to take to the Cape. One will be forwarded to you to-morrow by Lieut. Stratford, R.N., superintendent of the “Nautical Almanac,” who will send it to Prof. Schumacher, to whom, if you do not soon get it, pray write. I have also ordered a duplicate to be sent you by Mr. Hudson, assistant secretary of the Royal Society, and librarian, who will henceforward send you all my papers (in duplicate). My observations on the satellites of Uranus, which confirm my brother’s results, were sent to be put in course of publication last night.”

I have no doubt but that you, Sir, are in correspondence with the above named, but to me unknown, gentlemen, and that those two copies intended for me are only enclosed in a packet with many for yourself.

I long much to see the observations on the Georgian satellites, but doubt their being ready to come with the paper on nebulæ. I beg you will order them to be forwarded to me as soon as you see them yourselves, for I do not flatter myself with the hopes of being much longer for this world, but will be thankful if life is spared me till the end of April, when I hope to receive the assurance of my nephew’s safe arrival with his dear family at the Cape.

Excuse my troubling you so far, and believe me with great regard, dear Sir,

Your much obliged and humble servant,
C. HERSCHEL.