Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/175

Rh looked at for such a one, but even stared at here in Hanover!" Her deprecation of the membership of the Irish Academy, conferred on one who for so many years had "not even discovered a comet," was thoroughly sincere as well as characteristic, but she found pleasure in receiving the homage which was naturally paid to her; no man of any scientific eminence passed through Hanover without visiting her; and it became a matter of public concern to note the presence of the well-known tiny figure at the Theatre, where her constant appearance in extreme old age was in itself a marvel. The frugal simplicity of her habits made it a positive perplexity to dispose of her income; she protested that £50 a-year was all she could manage to spend on herself, and she pertinaciously resisted receiving the pension of £100 per annum left to her by her brother, often devoting the quarterly or half-yearly payment to the purchase of some handsome present for her nephew or niece. She wrote full instructions and made the most careful arrangements for every detail of business in connection with her own burial and the disposal of her property—that is of the little she reserved, for her generosity towards her relations was as great as the expenditure on herself was small.

In these last remarks I have anticipated events, and