“No, no,—certainly not; I never make vows; it is a rule with me to avoid them.”
“Give me, then, your promise,—your solemn promise,—at least I may claim that?”
“I have the same peculiarity about promises; I never make them.”
He was again beginning to storm, but again I assured him I would let the acquaintance take its old course, if he would but be appeased, and say no more; and, after difficulties innumerable, he at length gave up the point: but to this he was hastened, if not driven, by a summons to dinner.
DR. HERSCHEL AND HIS SISTER.
Sept.-Dr. Herschel is a delightful man; so unassuming with his great knowledge, so willing to dispense it to the ignorant, and so cheerful and easy in his general manners, that were he no genius it would be impossible not to remark him as a pleasing and sensible man. I was equally pleased with his sister, whom I had wished to see very much, for her great celebrity in her brother’s science. She is very little, very gentle, very modest, and very ingenious; and her manners are those of a person unhackneyed and unawed by the world, yet desirous to meet and to return its smiles. I love not the philosophy that braves it. This brother and sister seem gratified with its favour, at the same time that their own pursuit is all-sufficient to them without it.
I inquired of Miss Herschel if she was still comet-hunting, or content now with the moon? The brother answered that he had the charge of the moon, but he left to his sister to sweep the heavens for comets.
Their manner of working together is most ingenious and curious. While he makes his observations without-doors, he has a method of communicating them to his sister so immediately, that she can instantly commit them to paper, with the precise moment in which they are made. By this means he loses not a minute, when there is anything particularly worth observing, by writing it down, but can still proceed, yet still have his accounts and calculations exact. The methods he has contrived to facilitate this commerce I have not the terms to explain, though his simple manner of showing them made me, fully, at the time, comprehend them.