192 Caroline Liicretia HerscheL [1825. 



panions of old age) depends entirely on my exertion to bear 

 my share without communication, for unfortunately we are 

 never in the same mind, and with a nervous person of an 

 irritable temper one can only talk of the weather or the 

 flavour of a dish, for which I care not a pin about. But I 

 think I shall do well enough, for I am a subscriber to the 

 plays for two evenings per week, and Thursdays and Satur- 

 days two ladies with long titles are at home. This is what 

 they imagine (I believe) a learned society, or blue-stocking 

 club, of which, to make it complete (for all what I can say), 

 I must make one. I am to have a day too, viz., Tuesday, 

 and I begin to tremble for the end of October, when we are 

 to start, for in the morning I cannot work, and if I gad 

 about all the evenings nothing will be done. But we shall 

 see ! one thing I must not forget, there are no gentlemen of 

 the party to set us right ; but luckily not much is required, 

 to talk of Walter Scott, Byron, &c., will go a long way ; 

 and I subscribe to an English library, where they have all 

 the monthly reviews and Edinburgh Quarterly, Scott's 



works, and a few other novels 



Believe me yours affectionately, 



C. HERSCHEL. 



FROM J. F. W. HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL. 



SLOUGH [after July], 1825. 

 DEAR AUNT, 



I have sent by Mr. Goltermann several volumes of 

 Mr. South's and my paper on double stars, which form the 

 third part of the Philosophical Transactions for 1824. You 

 will, I have no doubt, be gratified to hear that the French 

 Academy of Sciences have thought so well of this work as to 

 give us the prize of astronomy for the present year (a large 

 and handsome gold medal to each of us). Our competitors, 

 it is whispered, were Bessel, Struve, and Pons, the first for 



