Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/16

 much valued by Sir John Herschel, and they are carefully preserved by the family along with her letters. The perusal of them is like reading of another world. The glimpses of the life of a soldier's family in Hanover at the time the Seven Years' War was going on are very touching. Both father and mother must have been remarkable persons, and the sterling quality of character developed in William and Caroline Herschel was evidently derived from them. All the family seem to have been endowed with something like touches of genius, but William and Caroline were the only two who had the strong back-bone of perseverance and high principle which made genius in them fulfil its perfect work.

Her own recollections go back to the Great Earthquake at Lisbon; she lived through the American War, the old French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon, and all manner of lesser events and wars. She saw all the improvements and inventions, from the lumbering post waggon in which she made her first journey from Hanover, to the railroads and electric telegraphs which have intersected all Europe, for she lived well down into the reign of Victoria. But her work of "minding the heavens" with her brother engrossed all her thoughts, and she scarcely mentions any public event.

Her own astronomical labours were remarkable, and in her later life she met with honour and recognition