CHAPTEE XI 



HERSCHEL'S ENGLISH HOME 



So long as Herschel's house was conducted by his 

 sister Caroline, it could scarcely be called an English 

 home. To all intents and purposes it was a German 

 household, ruled by a German mistress, and conducted 

 according to German ways. When he married the 

 widow of a London merchant, Mrs. Pitt, his sister, who 

 had been for some time kept unusually busy with 

 papers and calculations, wrote, as she was withdrawing 

 from this household management, "It may easily be 

 supposed that I must have been fully employed (be- 

 sides minding the heavens) to prepare everything as 

 well as I could against the time I was to give up the 

 place of a housekeeper, which was the eighth of May, 

 1788." She continued to mind the heavens; but she 

 had a good deal also to do with the earth. 



Of the lady to whom Herschel was married, of him- 

 self, and of his sister we have excellent word-pictures, 

 drawn by Miss Burney and her father. Caroline, who 

 for fourteen years had devoted her life to her brother's 

 studies, and who continued to show the same devotion 

 for sixty more, though resigning the post of house- 

 keeper, remained to help him in his pursuits and to 

 watch over his health. Reading the brief entries in 

 her diary, we cannot help concluding that in many 



