CHAP, v.] Letters. Life in Hanover. 161 



FROM MISS HEKSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL, ESQ. 



HANOVEII, Dec. 26, 1822. 

 MY DEAR NEPHEW, 



The parcel I am packing up contains so many odds 

 and ends, that I think it will be necessary to give you an 

 inventory of them. The most interesting to you, I think, 

 will be the three letters from your dear father (which I 

 found among my brother Alexander's papers), both on ac- 

 count of the handwriting and their containing some accounts 

 of the busy life of the times in which they were written. 



Of the philosophical work, I will say nothing further than 

 that I am curious to know if I have sent you sense, or 

 nonsense, that I may know in future how to trust my in- 

 former ; I am only sorry I could not send them bound, but 

 they came too late from Leipsic for that purpose. In the 

 small cover (with your little man looking through the tele- 

 scope) is a shade of your Uncle Alex., which you will be so 

 good as to give to your mother, who (if I remember right) 

 wished for the same, after it had been packed up, and she 

 will perhaps be so good as to send the letter to Mr. Henry 

 Griesbach the first time anybody goes to Windsor. 



So much for business, and on the other side I will talk a 

 little of myself. But it is a poor account I can give of 

 myself at present, and the worst of it is that I cannot hope 

 for better times. I am still unsettled, and cannot get my 

 books and papers in any order, for it is always noon before 

 I am well enough to do anything, and then visitors run 

 away with the rest of the day till the dinner hour (which is 

 two o'clock). Two or three evenings in each week are 

 spoiled by company. And at the heavens is no getting, 

 for the high roofs of the opposite houses. 



But within my room I am determined nothing shall be 

 wanting that can please my eye. Exactly facing me is a 

 bookcase placed on a bureau, to which I will have some 



