38 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



rehearsals frequently at home. Alexander had to leave 

 his turning-lathe for these rehearsals, and the seldom 

 enthusiastic sister writes of him, "his solos on the 

 violoncello were divine." It was work without inter- 

 mission. Even at meal-times William was generally 

 employed " contriving or making drawings of what- 

 ever came in his mind." Tea and supper were served 

 without interrupting the work he had on hand. While 

 he was at the turning-lathe or polishing mirrors for 

 telescopes, Caroline read to him Don Quixote, the 

 Arabian Nights, a novel of Sterne or Fielding. In 

 course of time she became as useful a member of the 

 household as a boy might be to his master in the first 

 year of his apprenticeship. Still more " to drill me for 

 a gentlewoman (God knows how she succeeded) two 

 lessons per week for a whole twelvemonth from Miss 

 Fleming, the celebrated dancing-mistress," were deemed 

 indispensable. The drollery of the thing ! " As I was 

 to take part the next year in the oratorios ! " nothing 

 is wanting to complete the fun but " two lessons per 

 week " at so much a lesson ! The old lady who wrote 

 this story of work and drollery both of them perhaps 

 detested by her when she was still a fraulein fresh 

 from her poor Hanover home may have laid the 

 colours a little too thickly on the picture of work, 

 earnest, all-absorbing work, and absurd fun, which she 

 left to posterity. We may well be gratified she has, 

 for if she escaped from the sneers of bullying Jacob, 

 she certainly fell into the hands of exacting William. 

 The difference was that she detested the former, wor- 

 shipped the latter, and made a great name for herself 

 as well as helped to make a greater for him. 



She entertained the idea that her power as a singer 



