Your health was drunk after dinner (put that int.) your pocket); and after much social conversation and a few hearty laughs, the ladies proposed to take a walk, in order, I believe, to leave Herschel and me together. We walked and talked
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round his great telescopes till it grew damp and dusk, then retreated into his study to philosophise. I had a string of questions ready to ask, and astronomical difficulties to solve, which, with looking at curious books and instruments, filled up the time charmingly till tea, which being drank with the ladies, we two retired again to the starry. Now having paved the way, we began to talk of my poetical plan, and he pressed me to read what I had done.(143) Heaven help his head! my eight books, of from four hundred to eight hundred and twenty lines, would require two or three days to read.
He made me unpack my trunk for my MS., from which I read him the titles of the chapters, and begged he would choose any book or character of a great astronomer he pleased. "Oh, let us have the beginning." I read him the first eighteen or twenty lines of the exordium, and then said I rather wished to come to modern times - I was more certain of my ground in high antiquity than after the time of Copernicus, and began my eighth chapter, entirely on Newton and his system. He gave me the greatest encouragement said repeatedly that I perfectly understood what I was writing' about - and only stopped me at two places: one was at a word too strong for what I had to describe, and the other at one too weak. The doctrine he allowed to be quite orthodox, concerning gravitation, refraction, reflection, optics, comets, magnitudes, distances, revolutions, etc., but made a discovery to me which, had I known sooner, would have overset me, and prevented my reading any part of my work: he said he had almost always had an aversion to poetry, which he regarded as the arrangement of fine words, without any useful meaning or adherence to truth; but that, when truth and science were united to these fine words, he liked poetry very well; and next morning, after breakfast, he made me read as much of another chapter on Descartes, etc., as the time would allow, as I had ordered my carriage at twelve. I read, talked, asked questions, and looked at books and instruments, till near one, when I set off for Chelsea. Page 133
HOSPITALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
(Madame d'Arblay to Mrs. Francis.) Westhamble, November 16, 1797. Your letter was most welcome to me, my dearest Charlotte, and I am delighted Mr. Broome(144) and my dear father will so speedily meet. If they steer clear of politics, there can be no doubt of their immediate exchange of regard and esteem. At all events, I depend upon Mr. B.'s forbearance of such subjects, if their opinions clash. Pray let me hear how the interview went off.
I need not say how I shall rejoice to see you again, nor how charmed we shall both be to make a nearer acquaintance with Mr. Broome; but, for heaven's sake, my dear girl, how are we to give him a dinner?—unless he will bring with him his poultry, for ours are not yet arrived from Bookham; and his fish, for ours are still at the bottom of some pond we know not where, and his spit, for our jack is yet without clue; and his kitchen grate, for ours waits for Count Rumford's(145) next pamphlet;—not to mention his table-linen;—and not to speak
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of his knives and forks, some ten of our poor original twelve having been massacred in M. d'Arblay's first essays in the art of carpentering ;-and to say nothing of his large spoons, the silver of our plated ones having feloniously made off under cover of the whitening-brush—and not to talk of his cook, ours being not yet hired ;-and not to start the subject of wine, ours, by some odd accident, still remaining at the wine-merchant's! With all these impediments, however, to convivial hilarity, if he will eat a quarter of a joint of meat (his share, I mean), tied up by a packthread, and roasted by a log of wood on the bricks,—and declare no potatoes so good as those dug by M. d'Arblay out of our garden,—and protest our small beer gives the spirits of champagne,—and make no inquiries where we have deposited the hops he will conclude we have emptied out of our table-cloth,— and pronounce that bare walls are superior to tapestry,—and promise us the first sight of his epistle upon visiting a new-built cottage,—we shall be sincerely happy to receive him in our hermitage; where I hope to learn, for my dearest Charlotte's sake, to love him as much as, for his own I have very long admired him.