264 Caroline Lucretia Herschel. [1834. 



MISS HERSCHEL TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL. 



BRAUNSCHWEIGER STRASSE, No. 376, 



May 1, 1834. 

 MY DEAR NEPHEW, 



Your precious letter relieved me on the 14th from a 

 whole twelvemonth's anxiety, for it was in April last year 

 when, by your few brief lines on business, I saw that you 

 were seriously preparing for leaving Europe, and from that 

 time I became in idea a vagrant accompanying you through 

 all the fatigues of preparing for such a momentous under- 

 taking. And if it had not been for the consoling letter of 

 your brother [in law] James, and one from Miss B. giving 

 me an account of the carefully arranged accommodation with 

 which they saw you depart, I should not have known how 

 to support myself till I saw your dear letter, which brought 

 me even more comfort than I could hope you would have 

 found time to think of. .... 



Both yourself and my dear niece urged me to write often, 

 and to write always twice ; but alas ! I could not overcome 

 the reluctance I felt of telling you that it is over with me, 

 for getting up at eight or nine o'clock, dressing myself, 

 eating my dinner alone without an appetite, falling asleep 

 over a novel (I am obliged to lay down to recover the fatigue 

 of the morning's exertions) awaking with nothing but the 

 prospect of the trouble of getting to bed, where very seldom 

 I get above two hours' sleep. It is enough to make a 

 parson swear ! To this I must add I found full employment 

 for the few moments, when I could rouse myself from a 

 melancholy lethargy, to spend in looking over my store of 

 astronomical and other memorandums of upwards of fifty 

 years collecting, and destroying all what might produce 

 nonsense when coming through the hands of a Block-kopff 

 in the Zeitungen. 



My dear friends, Mrs. and Miss Beckedorff, are assisting 



