From June 14 to October the 1st, and not any the least account, was rather too much for me to bear, especially during the months when those few friends who sometimes cheer me by a friendly call had all left the town to make summer excursions....
I have a few memorandums for my nephew, and will for the present take leave of my dear niece with my most heartfelt wishes that every future account with which I may yet be blessed from her dear hand may be like the last.
* * * * *
... I have four complete years of the Astronom. Nachrichten ready bound for you.... I wished to give you the number of the paper (but cannot find it again) where Bessel speaks of Saturn’s satellites, but my eyes are so dim, and I am too unwell for doing anything. I will therefore only say he has seen the 6th but not the 7th, the ring being in the way. In No. 293, two of Bessel’s assistants, Beer and Mädler, say a great deal about the observations of your father, but that goes all for nothing. I will only say in general that he did in one season more than any one else could have done, and would have resumed the hunt the next fifteen years if nothing had interfered. And the Georgium Sidus was followed as long as anything could be obtained from that planet, and it will yet be some twenty years before he will be in that favourable situation in the ecliptic where he was at the time when the satellites were discovered.
I have seen Struve’s Catalogue of Double Stars, wherein I find he agrees with your and your father’s observations.... Do not think, my dear nephew, that I would expose myself so as to say a word about these things to anybody else, but to you I cannot help letting it out when I am nettled.
I must leave off gossiping, else I shall not get this letter away, in which you will find Dr. H.’s barometrical observations, which I received a few days ago....
1836-1837. Spots in the Sun.
SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL.
Cape of Good Hope, Jan. 10, 1837.
My dear Aunt,—