My dearest Nephew,—
Your welcome letter of June 6 I received on the 19th August ... and I know not how to thank you sufficiently for the cheering account you give of the climate agreeing so well with you and all who are so dear to me, and that you find all about you so agreeable and comfortable, ... so that I have nothing left to wish for but a continuation of the same, and that I may only live to see the handwriting of your dear Caroline, though I have my doubts about lasting till then, for the thermometer standing 80° and 90° for upwards of two months, day and night, in my rooms (to which I am mostly confined) has made great havoc in my brittle constitution. I beg you will look to it that she learns to make her figures as you will find them in your father’s MSS., such as he taught me to make. The daughter of a mathematician must write plain figures.
My little grand-nephew making alliance with your workmen shews that he is taking after his papa. I see you now in idea (memory?) running about in petticoats among your father’s carpenters, working with little tools of your own, and John Wiltshire (one of Pitt’s men, whom you may perhaps remember), crying out, “Dang the boy, if he can’t drive in a nail as well as I can!” but pray take care that he does not come to harm, and in your next tell me something of our little Isabella, too.
1834. A Hole in the Sky.
I thank you for the astronomical portion of your letter, and for your promise of future accounts of uncommon objects. It is not clusters of stars I want you to discover in the body of the Scorpion (or thereabout), for that does not answer my expectation, remembering having once heard your father, after a long awful silence, exclaim, “Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel!”[[47]] and, as I said before, stopping afterwards at the same spot, but leaving it unsatisfied, &c....
About two months ago I was, for the last time, unfortunately, at the theatre, when Professor Schumacher and the Chevalier Kessel, of Danneburg, called on me. As soon as I came home I sent a note of invitation for the next evening, but had one returned informing me of their leaving Hanover next morning, and a promise of coming perhaps next summer. But I hear Struve is coming, and I hope I shall get a sight of him. The Emperor of Russia and the King of Denmark are cramming their observatories with astronomical instruments, &c., of all descriptions, made, I believe, some of them by Hohenbaum....
* * * * *
To my dear niece I beg you to give my best love and thanks for the kind arrangement to indemnify me for the loss of her dear letters, by charging her brothers to inform me of all they know, &c., which, thank God, is hitherto of the most comforting nature.
With the most heartfelt wishes for the continuance of the health of you all,
I remain, &c., &c.,