CHAPTER VI. 



LIFE IN HANOVER continued. 



MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL. 



Feb. 1, 1826. 



MY DEAREST NEPHEW,-- 



On the 17th January I received by the same post 

 your letters of December 30th and January 9th. I should 

 have answered your precious communication of December 

 30th immediately if I was not in hopes of receiving daily an 

 answer to what I sent on the 28th December. I cannot ex- 

 press my thanks sufficiently to you for thinking me worthy 

 of forming any judgment of your astronomical proceedings, 

 and am only sorry that I cannot recall the health, eyesight, 

 and vigor I was blessed with twenty or thirty years ago ; for 

 nothing else is wanting (and that is all) for my coming by 

 the first steamboat to offer you the same assistance (when 

 sweeping) as, by your father's instructions, I had been 

 enabled to afford him. For an observer at your twenty-foot 

 when sweeping wants nothing but a being that can and will 

 execute his commands with the quickness of lightning [!], 

 for you will have seen that in many sweeps six or twice six, 

 &c., objects have been secured and described within the 

 space of one minute of time. 



I cannot think that any catalogue but the MS. one in 

 zones (which was only intended for your own use) would 

 facilitate the reviewing of the Nebulae, and you are the only 



