212 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



too great, and it was tearing down his enfeebled frame. 

 For sixteen years the battle continued ; the phases of 

 it are recorded by his biographer, and little remains 

 but to trace in her words, how year after year saw his 

 strength declining and the flame of life dying out. At 

 the same time it is difficult to understand how Herschel 

 and his wife allowed this process of painful decay to 

 go forward unchecked. He did not require thus to die 

 in harness actually by inches. Both of them were 

 wealthy ; l and though he had resigned office, it is not 

 probable that his pension would have been withdrawn. 

 But the story of fading strength is told in words that 

 cannot be explained away. 



"When all hopes for the return of vigour and strength 

 necessary for resuming the unfinished task of polishing 

 the great mirror was gone, all cheerfulness and spirits 

 had also forsaken him, and his temper was changed 

 from the sweetest almost to a pettish one; and for 

 that reason I was obliged to refrain from troubling 

 him with any questions, though ever so necessary, for 

 fear of irritating or fatiguing him." Want of room, 

 the refusal of funds to meet expenses, the great 

 telescope "nearly fallen into decay almost in all its 

 parts," "every nerve of the dear man unstrung by 

 over-exertion," may well send a thrill of sympathetic 

 sorrow through every reader of the story. Neither 

 Brighton nor Bath, nor summer visits to Edinburgh 

 or Glasgow could restore the lost tone : " A farther 

 attempt at leaving the work complete became im- 

 possible." How sorrowful the entries for more than a 



1 His personal effects are set down in his will at 6000, and he left 

 25,000 more in 3 per cent. Keduced Annuities to his son, besides 

 other large legacies. 



