150 Caroline Lucretia Herschcl. [1822. 



Miss Edgeworth's sisters, "the blank of life after 

 having lived within the radiance of genius ; " and 

 this was the blank in which Miss Herschel doomed 

 herself not only to live, but to try to begin anew,, 

 when past three score and ten. The extracts from 

 her letters bear strong testimony to the gallant struggle 

 she made to find interests and occupations in what 

 those about her, as well as she herself, looked upon as. 

 a kind of exile, and " Why did I leave happy Eng- 

 land ? " was often her cry, more especially as time 

 went on, and interest in her nephew and his family 

 came mercifully to fill the heart still so yearning and 

 ready for affection. When she heard the news of Sir 

 John Herschel's intended departure for the Cape, she 

 wrote, " Ja ! if I was thirty or forty years junger and 

 could go too ? in Gottes nahmen ! " her interest in 

 the science to which she had devoted her best years 

 never ceased, though she persisted to the end in ridi- 

 culing the bare suggestion that the Eosse telescope 

 could by any possibility be so good as the forty-foot. 

 The homage paid to her as a savante amused as well 

 as gratified her. " You must give me leave to send 

 you any publication you can think of," she wrote to 

 her nephew, "without mentioning anything about 

 paying for them. For it is necessary I should every 

 now and then lay out a little of my spare cash in 

 that for the sake of supporting the reputation of being 

 a learned lady (there is for you !), for I am not only 



