Car. Herschel.
P.S.—I beg my respects to ... Blumenbach, and I shall ever remember with many thanks the visit with which he honoured me when last at Hanover.
1824. Visit from her Nephew.
FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL.
Hanover, Oct. 14, 1824.
My dear Lady Herschel,—
My dear nephew has now been gone a week, and I follow him in idea every inch he is moving farther from us, and think he must now be near the water. I am at this moment in the greatest panic imaginable, for we have had all the week much rain, and now it blows a perfect hurricane. I shall not send this till I have heard from you that the dear traveller is safely at home, for it would be cruel to augment your anxiety, which I know you are feeling till you see him again.
[Here follows a long history of the younger members of the Griesbach family, with details of the events of seventy years before.]
... I have not yet done, my dear Lady Herschel, and shall not be easy till I have given some little account of my brother’s [Dietrich’s] family, merely for yours and my dear nephew’s gratification; for, from his kind inquiries if I wanted anything? if he could do nothing for me? it seemed as if he thought he could not do enough for us. My answer was nothing! nothing! and this I could say with truth, as at my age and situation (which is truly respectable) I should not know what to do with more without lavishing it on others, where it would only create habits of luxury and extravagance. The time of our dear nephew’s being here was too short for much confidential conversation, else I wished to have made him better acquainted with mine and my brother Dietrich’s sentiments concerning the noble bequest of our lamented brother, of which Dietrich had not the most distant hope or expectation (for I believe they never had any conversation on the subject), as I am sure his way of thinking is similar to mine, that brothers and sisters (such as we were), each beginning the world with nothing but health and abilities for getting our bread, ought to feel shame at taking from the other if he should by uncommon exertion and perseverance have raised himself to affluence. According to this notion I refused my dear brother’s proposal (at the time he resolved to enter the married state) of making me independent, and desired him to ask the king for a small salary to enable me to continue his assistant. £50 were granted to me, with which I was resolved to live without the assistance of my brother; but when nine quarters were left unpaid I was obliged to apply to him, as he had charged me not to go to anyone else. In 1803, you and my brother insisted on my having £10 quarterly added to my income, which I certainly should not have accepted if I had not been in a panic for my friends at Hanover, which had just then been taken by the French.
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