Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope. "Each time after having read them over again they are put by, under thanksgiving to the Almighty, with a prayer for future protection."
"Writing to my absent friends is one of the most laborious employments I could fly to when under bodily and, of course, mental sickness, for it is not impossible I might, instead of making inquiry about my little precious grand-nephew, and the young ladies, who play, sing and sew so prettily, write, 'Oh! my back, O! I have the cramp here, there,' etc." She is nearing the end of life, "going many nights to bed without the hope of seeing another day." But the old spirit of drollery, and the lifelong love of science are constantly flashing out "I could not live without that little business of keeping my accounts," she writes, and shows herself true to a woman's household-place, and to science at the same time. "I hope people in England will never go such lengths in foolery as they do here." At Christmas time, "Cooks and housemaids present one another with knitted bags and purses, the cobbler's daughter embroidered neck-cushions for her friend the butcher's daughter, which are made up by the upholsterer at great expense, lined with white satin, the upper part, on which the back is to rest, is worked with gold, silver, and pearls." And, drollest of all, she adds, "Writing this, puts me in mind that I never could remember the multiplication table, but was obliged to carry always a copy of it about me."
A last gratification, and certainly not the least of the many she enjoyed during her retirement, was the placing in her hands of her nephew's completion in South Africa of his father's survey of the heavens.
