Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/185

Rh , Dec. 26, 1822. 2em

The parcel I am packing up contains so many odds and ends, that I think it will be necessary to give you an inventory of them. The most interesting to you, I think, will be the three letters from your dear father (which I found among my brother Alexander's papers), both on account of the handwriting and their containing some accounts of the busy life of the times in which they were written.

Of the philosophical work, I will say nothing further than that I am curious to know if I have sent you sense, or nonsense, that I may know in future how to trust my informer; I am only sorry I could not send them bound, but they came too late from Leipsic for that purpose. In the small cover (with your little man looking through the telescope) is a shade of your Uncle Alex., which you will be so good as to give to your mother, who (if I remember right) wished for the same, after it had been packed up, and she will perhaps be so good as to send the letter to Mr. Henry Griesbach the first time anybody goes to Windsor.

So much for business, and on the other side I will talk a little of myself. But it is a poor account I can give of myself at present, and the worst of it is that I cannot hope for better times. I am still unsettled, and cannot get my books and papers in any order, for it is always noon before I am well enough to do anything, and then visitors run away with the rest of the day till the dinner hour (which is two o'clock). Two or three evenings in each week are spoiled by company. And at the heavens is no getting, for the high roofs of the opposite houses.

But within my room I am determined nothing shall be wanting that can please my eye. Exactly facing me is a bookcase placed on a bureau, to which I will have some 2em