738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Her turn of mind was practical and jDlodding, while tlie father was 

 intellectual and aspiring. It is abundantly evident that Caroline had 

 a bitter and desolate childhood. Expressions of affection or regard 

 from her relatives were very i"are in her experience, while her own 

 sympathies had a most precocious development. It is said that when 

 only three years old she was deeply concerned about family troiables. 

 Her only sistei*, the oldest child of the family, was married to a mu- 

 sician named Griesbach. Jacob, the eldest brother, was organist at 

 the garrison church ; and William, four years younger, was already re- 

 markable for his splendid talents, apart from music. In the following 

 passage from her diary we have a picture of the family at this time : 



" My brothers were often introduced as solo performers and assistants in the 

 orchestra of the court, and I remember that I was frequently prevented from 

 going to sleep by the lively criticism on music on coming from a concert, or con- 

 versations on philosophical subjects, which lasted frequently till morning, in 

 which my father was a lively partaker and assistant of my brother WiUiam by 

 contriving self-made instruments. . . . Often I would keep myself awake that I 

 might listen to their animating remarks, for it made me so happy to see them so 

 happy. But generally their conversation would branch out on philosophical 

 subjects, whenmy brother William and my father often argued with such warmth 

 that my mother's interference became necessary, when the names of Leibnitz, 

 Newton, and Euler, sounded rather too loud for the repose of her little ones, 

 who ought to be in school by seven in the morning. But it seems that on the 

 brothers retiring to their own room, where they shared the same bed, my brother 

 William had still a great deal to say ; and frequently it happened that, when he 

 stopped for an assent or reply, be found his hearer was gone to sleep ; and I 

 suppose it was not till then he bethought himself to do the same. 



" The recollection of these happy scenes coniirms me in the belief that, had 

 my brother William not then been interrupted in his philosophical pursuits, we 

 should have had much earlier proofs of his inventive genius. My father was a 

 great admirer of astronomy, and had some knowledge of that science ; for I re- 

 member his taking me into the street to make me acquainted with several of the 

 most beautiful constellations, after we had been gazing at a comet which was 

 then visible. And I well remember with what delight he used to assist my 

 brother William in his various contrivances in the pursuit of his philosophical 

 studies, among which was a neatly-turned four-inch globe, upon which the 

 equator and the ecliptic were engraved by my brother." 



But this little household was soon broken up, the regiment of 

 Guards being ordered to England in 1755. The parting scenes are 

 thus described : 



"In our room all was mute, but in hurried action; my dear father was thin 

 and pale, and my brother William almost equally so, for he was of a delicate 

 constitution, and growing .fast. Of my brother Jacob, I only remember his 

 starting difficulties at every thing that was done for him, as my father was busy 

 to see that they were equipped with tho necessaries for a march. The whole 

 town was in motion, with drums beating to march ; the troops hallooed and 

 roared in the streets, the drums beat louder. Griesbach came to join my father 

 and brothers, and in a moment they were all gone. My sister fled to her own 



