Page:Hector Macpherson - Herschel (1919).djvu/71

Rh She preserved this, with the comment, "I keep this as a relic! Every line now traced by the hand of my dear brother becomes a treasure to me." Her own health was seriously impaired, and she sometimes expected to pass away before him. But a different fate was in store for her. The hot summer of 1822 told heavily upon Herschel, but apparently no imminent danger was anticipated, for his son John, then a graduate of Cambridge, started on the 8th of August for a tour on the continent. On the 15th, "after half-an-hour's vain attempt to support himself," the faithful chronicler relates, "my brother was obliged to consent to be put to bed, leaving no hope ever to see him rise again". Ten days later, 25th August, 1822, he passed away, within three months of completing his eighty-fourth year. He was buried in the church of St. Lawrence at Upton, near Slough. The long Latin inscription claims for him that "coelorum perrupit claustra"—"He broke through the barriers of the skies".

The end was not unexpected, but to his devoted sister—the companion and co-worker of a lifetime—the loss was irreparable. After his death, she tells us, there was but one comfort left her, "that of retiring to the chamber of death, there to ruminate without interruption on my isolated situation. Of this last solace I was robbed on the 7th September, when the dear remains were consigned to the grave." Her own life, she felt, was finished; she had no further interests. And so she decided to leave England and return to Hanover and the scenes of her girlhood, there to spend the evening of her days. There was another reason for her decision. Only one of her brothers now survived; Alexander had died a year before William, and sentimental reasons impelled her to make her home with Dieterich. In the midst of her deep sorrow she had made over to Dieterich—shiftless and impecunious as ever—her little capital sum of £500; in her own words, "I gave myself, with all I was worth, up to my brother Dieterich and his family". No sooner