Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/34

father returned, those epithets could ill apply to the father himself, for there is abundant evidence that he was a man of no ordinary character one who, in spite of constant suffering of a most distressing kind, persisted in hard work to the very end, and who set his children a noble example of patience, unselfishness, and self-denial. To the last, as his daughter records,—

"Copying music employed every vacant moment, even sometimes throughout half the night, and the pen was not suffered to rest even when smoking a pipe, which habit he indulged in rather on account of his asthmatical constitution than as a luxury; for, without all exception, he was the most abstemious liver I ever have known; and in every instance, even in the article of clothing, the utmost frugality was observed, and yet he never was seen otherwise than very neat. . . . With my brother [Dietrich] now a little engaging creature of between four and five years old he was very much pleased, and [on the first evening of his arrival at home] before he went to rest, the Adempken (a little violin) was taken from the lumbering shelf and newly strung and the daily lessons immediately commenced. . . . I do not recollect that he ever desired any other society than what he had opportunities of enjoying in many of the parties where he was introduced by his profession; though far from being of a morose disposition; he would frequently encourage my mother in keeping up a social intercourse among a few acquaintances, whilst his afternoon hours generally were taken up in giving lessons to some scholars at home, who gladly saved him the troublesome exertion of walking. . . . He also found great pleasure in seeing Dietrich's improvement, who, young as he was, and of the most lively temper imaginable, was always ready