During all this time she was sorely troubled about her duty in the matter of leaving her mother, and she thus speaks of her feelings:
"In this manner (making prospective clothes for them) I tried to still the compunction I felt at leaving relatives who, I feared, would lose some of their comforts by my desertion, and nothing but the belief of returning to them full of knowledge and accomplishments could have supported me in the parting moment. . . . My brother William, at last, quite unexpectedly arrived. . . . His stay at Hanover could at the utmost not be prolonged above a fortnight. … My mother had consented to my going with him, and the anguish at my leaving her was somewhat alleviated by my brother settling a small annuity on her, by which she would be enabled to keep an attendant to supply my place. . . . But I will not attempt to describe my feelings when the parting moment arrived and I left my dear mother and most dear Dietrich, on Sunday, August 16, 1772."
After a dismal journey of six days and nights, in an open post-wagon through Holland, and a stormy passage across the Channel, she arrived in England on the 26th, bareheaded, her bonnet having been blown into a canal from the post-wagon, and the first part of her "Recollections" ends with an account of her experiences in London at this time.
Before resuming Miss Herschel's diary it is needful to explain that, at the time she came to live with him, William Herschel was an eminent teacher of music at Bath, an organist with a choir under his management, a composer of anthems, chants, etc., and director of public concerts. But he followed music solely for the income it afforded; every leisure moment he could get by night or by day being devoted to the study of astronomy. He was known among his music-pupils as an astronomer, and some of them had lessons from him in this science as well as in music. He early applied his inventive talents to the improvement of telescopes. He began by getting from one of the shops a two-and-a-half-foot Gregorian telescope which served for viewing the heavens and for studying the construction of the instrument. Then he began to make instruments himself, which he went on improving and enlarging till at last the mirror for his great forty-foot telescope resulted. Such were the occupations of the brother whom Miss Herschel came to England to help. What she did and with what success is told in the following extracts from her "Recollections:"
