A few years after this, in 1835, Miss Herschel was, along with Mrs. Somerville, made an Honorary Member of the Astronomical Society. The report of the council to the annual meeting contains the following well deserved words of praise:—
"Your Council has no small pleasure in recommending that the names of two ladies, distinguished in different walks of astronomy, be placed on the list of honorary members. On the propriety of such a step, in an astronomical point of view, there can be but one voice; and your Council is of opinion that the time has gone by when either feeling or prejudice, by whichever name it may be proper to call it, should be allowed to interfere with the payment of a well-earned tribute of respect. Your Council has hitherto felt that, whatever might be its own sentiment on the subject, it had no right to place the name of a lady in a position the propriety of which might be contested, though upon what it might consider narrow grounds and false principles. But your Council has no fear that such a difference could now take place between any men whose opinion could avail to guide that of society at large; and, abandoning compliment on the one hand, and false delicacy on the other, submits, that while the tests of astronomical merit should in no case be applied to the works of a woman less severely than to those of a man, the sex of the former should no longer be an obstacle to her receiving any acknowledgment which may be held due to the latter. And your Council therefore recommends this meeting to add to the list of honorary members the names of Miss Caroline Herschel and Mrs. Somerville, of whose astronomical knowledge, and of the utility of the ends to which it has been applied, it is not necessary to recount the proofs."
Miss Herschel always maintained a warm correspondence with her relatives in England, and when over eighty years of age wrote some recollections of her early years for her nephew. Notwithstanding her life of toil, she lived and retained her faculties to the wonderful age of ninety-seven years and ten months.
Her life affords an illustrious example of constant sisterly devotion from the days of lisping childhood, when her brother's love was her great joy, until when, after the lapse of almost a century—his memory her greatest happiness—she desired a lock of his hair to be placed in her coffin.
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.
Only a sister's part—yes, that was all;
And yet her life was bright, and full, and free.
She did not feel, "I give up all for him";
She only knew, "'Tis mine his friend to be."
The author of "Mornings in Spring" refers to Sir Philip and Mary Sidney as affording the most pleasing example of devotion between a brother and sister on record. He was probably correct in his estimate, for at the time when he wrote, the story of Dorothy Wordsworth was unknown. The opinion cannot, however, any longer be held. For among the fair cluster who in life's firmament hallow the sphere of sisterhood is one who must long claim the honoured place—Dorothy Wordsworth; look where we will, in her life she is the same, always loving, helpful, stimulating, inspiring, and faithful. The childhood's playmate feeds the brother's love, and becomes, even then, his "blessing." The very thought of the absent sister is like a "flash of light" cheering the loneliness of college chambers. The young woman stimulates the youthful poet, and calls back faith to the soul and hope to the despairing life, praises where others blame, with the prophetic eye of love divines the dormant power, and foresees the honoured future. Then follows the life-long companionship, involving for many years devoted service, both intellectual and household. For Dorothy Wordsworth was often the provider of subjects for her brother's poems, with diligent labour copied those poems, at the same time, by her reading and study, making herself his intellectual companion, and presiding over the household. And through all not the least part of her service lay in her complete self-effacement. With her intellectual endowment and rare literary skill she possessed the ability to have made herself no mean place in literature. All were surrendered in thought for the brother. Faithful Dorothy! Well might her brother love her with an almost unexampled love, this brightest example of sisterly devotion!