There have been some English gentlemen with Mrs. Beckedorff on business, who, in conversation, among the rest, were saying that the keeping Christmas in the German fashion was coming to be very general in England; but I hope they will never go such lengths in foolery as they do here. The tradespeople have been for many weeks in full employ framing and mounting the embroideries of the ladies and girls of all classes, for there exists not a folly or extravagancy among the great but it is imitated by the little. The shops are beautifully lit up by gas, and the last three days before Christmas all that could be tempting was exhibited in the market places in booths lighted up in the evening, where all run to gaze and get a liking to all they see. Cooks and housemaids present one another with knitted bags and purses, the cobbler’s daughter embroidered neck-cushions for her friend the butcher’s daughter, which are made up by the upholsterer at great expense, lined with white satin, the upper part, on which the back is to rest, is worked with gold, silver, and pearls.
But I find too much difficulty to write in these short days, else I could write a book about the nonsense which is going on in this city. I have for this last month been completely tired out with this Christmas bustle; but now the balls at the Bourse, given by the shopmen to the daughters of their masters, will be succeeded by the masquerades in Lent, an amusement which in the good old times was only for the nobility, but from which they are now excluded....
1841. Concerning her Brother.
MISS HERSCHEL TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL.
Feb. 24, 1841.
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I intended to have made some remarks to you about several things which are said in those pages which came enclosed in the letter of February 3rd. I suppose it is not expected to acknowledge the receipt thereof, but if there is anybody to whom my thanks are due, I beg you will do it for me, because I am not capable of writing to strangers. But to you I cannot help pointing out several things which displease me very much....
I think whoever reads the Preface to the description of the forty-foot telescope (see “Philosophical Transactions,” June 11, 1795), would not accuse him of jealousy—which also may be seen by the four volumes on the construction of Specula, which your father left behind in MSS., (to which you added those excellent drawings of the machinery, &c.), which it was my care, for half a dozen years at least, to save them from being devoured by the mice, by placing them on a table in the middle of the library, where I was obliged to leave them when I left Slough, for I could not find a better place for them.
Your father was latterly most miserably stinted for room, and I fear many, many things have met with destruction in consequence of being put by in corners among rubbish when not in use. For instance, when polishing and the foci were to be tried, by three apertures, which generally wanted to be repaired first; (for the twenty-foot they were made of pasteboard, but for the forty-foot of light deal) and I was directed to hold them before the mirror, and, listening to the report of the trial, was glad to hear “All right, three foci perfectly alike!” and the work proceeded to perfect the polish. Dear nephew, I stick fast, and must give over talking about these things; it downright fatigues me. But these folks would not have called the Herschelian construction useless if they had seen the struggle, during the years from 1781 to ’86, to get a sight of the Satellites of the Georgium Sidus, when, after throwing aside the speculum, they stood broad before us.... Pray, does South live still?
MISS HERSCHEL TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL.