Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/180

156 , Nov. 12, 1822. 2em I hope you have received the letter which I sent by the first post which went from here after my arrival, dated 31st October, and also one I wrote in Rotterdam, by which you will have seen what a disagreeable passage we had at sea, but all those frights and fears, and the troubles and fatigues of the journey we afterwards experienced by land appear now to have been nothing but a dream, and my waking thoughts are for ever wandering back to the scenes of sorrows which embittered the afflicting and final parting from my revered brother. If I could but be assured that you and my dear nephew at this present moment were in tolerable health and otherwise exempted from vexation, I should feel myself much more comfortable, but it is hard to live for months without knowing what may have happened to those with whom one has been for so many years immediately connected and in the habit of keeping up a daily intercourse.

I have hitherto not been able to overcome a dislike to going abroad, and what little I have seen of Hanover (in my way to the families of my two nieces and Mrs. Beckedorff who live all close by) I do not like! And though some streets have been enlarged (as I am told), they appear to me much less than I left them fifty years ago. But a total seclusion from society will not do for a continuance, for I will not be ungrateful, I must call on the Delmerings, &c.,— who have been here. Mrs. D. is grown quite fat and very handsome, her daughter is a head taller and a very pretty young woman; the eldest son is already in the service with the Erz Herzog of Strelitz, and there has been no increase in the family since they left England. Mrs. D. made many