July 3rd.—I left Slough by the nine o’clock Newbury coach, and remained with the Miss Whites [at Newbury] till next morning.
July 4th.—At six in the evening I was received at Bath by my brother Alex. and his old housekeeper in a house Mrs. H. had taken for the next winter in Little Stanhope Street. The house had been uninhabited, and the furniture moved into it from the house on Sion Hill by strangers, labourers; the things met me helter-skelter in the passage, some belonging to the drawing-room amongst curry-combs and bridles and other stable utensils. My first care was to make an inventory of the whole, before I let a stranger come into the house, but by the 10th of July I hired a maid of all work to assist me to bring the house into habitable order, and by July 29th I was ready for resuming the work of re-calculating sweeps, or despatching some copying, &c., which was sent me by the coach from Slough, and from the printer in London, my brother being with his family at Tunbridge Wells.
Sept. 10th.—I received a box from Slough. My brother was come home, and Alex. went to assist in re-polishing the forty-foot mirror, and left Bath Sept. 15; he returned
Oct. 2nd.—Some of my time during his absence I spent at his house on Margaret’s Hill to clean and repair his furniture, and making his habitation comfortable against his return.
Oct. 29th.—I received notice that in about a fortnight I should be wanted at Slough.
FROM DR. HERSCHEL IN LONDON TO CAROLINE HERSCHEL AT BATH.
London, Nov. 7, 1800.
Dear Sister,—
Last night my paper on which I have been so long at work was read at the society. I came to London to bring it, and have been so hurried as not to be able to look out any work for you, but shall now be at liberty to do something of that kind. My things here are in considerable disorder, and in a short time Mrs. Herschel and myself wish to come for a little time to Bath, then we will let you know if it’s soon, that you may come here on a visit before we go, that I may point out to you the work that is most necessary to be done in our short absence. I thought it best to give you this early notice, because, though we have not fixed upon the time, it will be towards the latter end of this month that we mean to come for perhaps a fortnight or three weeks, according to the weather; for, if that should be fine we shall return, that I may have a few sweeps before you go back to Bath. Miss Baldwin is at Slough, and stays while we are away, so that you will have company, and the chaise will also be left, so that you can pay visits at Windsor, and show yourself to all your friends and ours.
My last paper consisted of eighty pages, so that you will have a piece of work to gather it together out of the scraps I leave. Some part of it was brought together in the beginning by Miss Baldwin and Mrs. Herschel which will show the order, but the rest remains in bits, which I have gathered together and numbered....