272 Caroline Lucretta Herschel. [1835. 



MISS HERSCHEL TO F. BAILY, ESQ. 



HANOVER, April 2, 1835. 

 DEAR SIR, 



I feel very great gratification at recollecting that some 

 twenty years ago I had the pleasure of being present when 

 you were conversing at Slough with my dear brother, for 

 it encourages me to address you now as an old friend, and I 

 might almost say my only one, for death has not spared me 

 one of those valuable men of the last century in whose 

 society I had an opportunity of spending many happy hours, 

 when they came to pass an astronomical night at Bath, 

 Datchet, Clay Hall, and Slough. And I should now in the 

 absence of my nephew (who would in my name have pro- 

 perly answered your kind letter for me) been much at a loss 

 how to reply to yours of March 17. But I hope, dear Sir, 

 you will have the goodness to return my sincere thanks to 

 the Council of the Society for voting me a complete copy of 

 their Memoirs. B*ut, considering my advanced age and 

 declining health, I think it best not to have them sent over 

 to me, for it would cause me much uneasiness to leave them 

 in the hands of those who could neither read nor understand 

 them. 



I suppose my nephew must have himself a complete copy 

 of the Memoirs ; but. if not, I beg you will give them to 

 him, along with my love, as a keepsake from his affec- 

 tionate and grateful aunt, the first opportunity you have to 

 see him on his return. 



Your kind information of the work with which you are at 

 present engaged, touches a string which it has caused me 

 no small trouble to silence ; for whenever my thoughts 

 return to those two or three years of which every moment 

 that could be spared from other immediate astronomical 

 business was, by my brother's desire, allotted for com- 



