156 Caroline Lucretia Hcrschel. [1822 



FROM MISS HEKSCIIEL TO LADY HERSCHEL. 



HANOVER, Nov. 12, 1822. 



MY DEAR LADY HERSCHEL, 



I hope you have received the letter which I sent by 

 the first post which went from here after my arrival, dated 

 31st October, and also one I wrote in Rotterdam, by which 

 you will have seen what a disagreeable passage we had at 

 sea, but all those frights and fears, and the troubles and 

 fatigues of the journey we afterwards experienced by land 

 appear now to have been nothing but a dream, and my 

 waking thoughts are for ever wandering back to the scenes 

 of sorrows which embittered the afflicting and final parting 

 from my revered brother. If I could but be assured that 

 you and my dear nephew at this present moment were in 

 tolerable health and otherwise exempted from vexation, I 

 should feel myself much more comfortable, but it is hard to 

 live for months without knowing what may have happened 

 to those with whom one has been for so many years imme- 

 diately connected and in the habit of keeping up a daily 

 intercourse. 



I have hitherto not been able to overcome a dislike to 

 going abroad, and what little I have seen of Hanover (in my 

 way to the families of my two nieces and Mrs. Beckedorff, 

 who live all close by) I do not like ! And though some 

 streets have been enlarged (as I am told), they appear to me 

 much less than I left them fifty years ago. But a total 

 seclusion from society will not do for a continuance, for I 

 will not be ungrateful, I must call on the Delmerings, &c., 

 who have been here. Mrs. D. is grown quite fat and very 

 handsome, her daughter is a head taller and a very pretty 

 young woman ; the eldest son is already in the service with 

 the Erz Herzog of Strelitz, and there has been no increase 

 in the family since they left England. Mrs. D. made many 



