Page:Sir William Herschel, his life and works (1881).djvu/90

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
68
Life and Works

CHAPTER III.

life at datchet, clay hall, and slough; 1782-1822.

The new house at Datchet, which was occupied from 1782 till 1785, was a source of despair to Carolina Herschel, who looked upon its desolate and isolated condition with a housekeeper's eyes. This was nothing to her brother, who gayly consented to live upon "eggs and bacon," now that he was free at last to mind the heavens. The ruinous state of the place had no terrors in his eyes, for was there not a laundry which would serve as a library, a large stable which was just the place for the grinding of mirrors, and a grass-plat for the small twenty-foot reflector?

Here they set to work at astronomy; the