Page:Hector Macpherson - Herschel (1919).djvu/77

Rh joined me, I am sure, deeply in admiring a great, simple, good old man—Dr. Herschel. . . . His simplicity, his kindness, his anecdotes, his readiness to explain—and make perfectly conspicuous too—his own sublime conceptions of the Universe, are indescribably charming. He is seventy-six, but fresh and stout, and there he sat nearest the door at his friend's house, alternately smiling at a joke, or contentedly sitting without share or notice in the conversation. Any train of conversation he follows implicitly; anything you ask he labours with a sort of boyish earnestness to explain. . . . Speaking of himself he said, with a modesty of manner which quite overcame me, when taken together with the greatness of the assertion, 'I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth'."

Herschel's close friendships were few but enduring. Sir William Watson, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Maskelyne, and Mr. Aubert, were intimate friends and correspondents of many years' standing. Among continental astronomers, Lalande, Bode, and Schröter, were the most frequent correspondents. With men of science his relations were as harmonious as with humble amateurs or anxious inquirers. No acrimonious controversies disturbed the even tenor of his scientific career. The nearest approach to heat was in his paper of 1793, when he made his spirited refutation of Schröter's alleged discovery of high mountains in Venus; and on that occasion his words were probably written more in the spirit of banter than controversy. At least, Schröter seems to have so regarded them, for the two astronomers continued to be friendly correspondents.

His mind was many-sided, and to the end his interests were varied. His love for music never left him, nor did that early interest in metaphysical and logical reasoning which prompted the seventeen-year-old musician to spend all