WILLIAM HERSCHEL
illiam Herschell, born Seventeen Hundred Thirty-eight, in the city of Hanover, was the fourth child in a family of ten. Big families, I am told, usually live in little houses, while little families live in big houses. The Herschels were no exception to the rule.
Isaac Herschel, known to the world as being the father of his son, was a poor man, depending for support upon his meager salary as bandmaster to a regiment of the Hanoverian Guards.
At the garrison school, taught by a retired captain, William was the star scholar. In mathematics he propounded problems that made the worthy captain pooh-pooh and change the subject.
At fourteen, he was playing a hautboy in his father's band and practising on the violin at spare times.
For music he had a veritable passion, and to have a passion for a thing means that you excel in it—excellence is a matter of intensity. One of the players in the band was a Frenchman, and William made an arrangement to give the "parlez vous" lessons on the violin as payment for lessons in French.