Memorandum for my next letter, made April 23rd.
To my Nephew. On reading your letter to the editor of the Times, of March 31st, I recollect having written down some observations of your father’s on the zodiacal light; he never lost an opportunity of noticing anything remarkable during twilight, or in the absence of nebulæ, &c., and I remember also his explaining to me another kind of ray, which is after sun-setting, reaching up very high; but this only appears for one or two nights at the equinox: but I have forgot all about it, and want only to speak here about a temporary Index to observations, in which I know a few of suchlike memorandums were catalogued or carried in their separate books. With this Index your father was never satisfied, telling me, “I could not make an Index, it was a task Sir I. Newton had found too difficult to accomplish,” ... and he would hardly allow me to make use of this book, after calling it a temporary Index. But it has often saved me a whole week’s poring over the Journals for a memorandum....
MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL.
June, 1843.
My dearest and best Niece,—
I must write a few lines by way of thanking you for your dear letter of May 9th. Your description of the splendid observations which are made on the roof of your own mansion, recall the many solitary and, at the same time, happy hours I spent on my little roof at Slough, when I was not wanted at the twenty-foot. And I cannot help at the same time regretting my having spent these last twenty years in so useless a manner, between roofs and houses which prevent my seeing even an eclipse of the moon when in a low part of the ecliptic, it passes away behind the houses of my opposite neighbours; and so did the glorious tail of your comet, of which, however, I have gathered all that has been said in the papers, besides what you and my dear nephew have been so kind as to communicate....
I have just been reading part of your dear packet over again, and am resolved to follow your advice, and say as little of what happens now as possibly I can help, and send herewith what I call the first part of my History, of which I wish you will in your very next give me your sincere opinion. I shall judge by it if I may go on, or lay down the pen for ever.
(I hope the packet containing my brother’s biography has been safely taken care of among his papers, for I have no copy of it; pray let me know if you have seen such a packet, I think it is in quarto, and that I put it in a cover like all the MSS.)
Of the present I can only say that I have been unable to do anything beside keeping myself alive, and getting my clothes on by twelve at noon, so that I may be able to receive anybody who may call on me between that hour and eight in the evening.
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