CHAP, vi.] Continuation of her History. 217 



MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL. 



Sept. 25, 1827. 



DEAREST NEPHEW, 



Herewith you will receive what I have called No. 1, 

 which was never intended to have met your eye as it is ; but, 

 as contrary to my expectation, my No. 2 was so cordially 

 received by you, I had intended to send you only an 

 abridgment of it, because it contains many things which 

 must be very uninteresting and almost unintelligible to you 

 on account of your being unacquainted with the (then) 

 manners and customs of this country, besides requiring to 

 remember that my father and mother were born and 

 educated some hundred and twenty years back. But I 

 must send it as it is, or destroy it immediately, for I feel I 

 shall now never get well enough for making any alteration 

 further than running my eye over it and adding a note here 

 and there where necessary. But I wish not to leave my 

 memorandums an}' longer to the chance of falling into the 

 hands of officious would-be learned ignorance, to furnish a 

 paragraph in some newspaper or journal. 



I will, however, save you and myself the trouble of 

 further apologising for sending you these papers, but just 

 explain my reason for taking a copy of them with me. 



When I took my leave of the contents of your father's 

 library, it was parting from all with which my heart and soul 

 liad been engaged for the best part of my life, and I could 

 not withstand the temptation of carrying away with me an 

 index for assisting my memory when in my reveries I should 

 imagine myself to be on the spot where I took leave of all 

 that had been most dear to me. 



What is contained in No. 1 I had intended for an ever- 

 lasting pleasing melancholy subject for conversation with 

 my brother Dietrich, if I should go back again to the place 



