Page:Williamherschel00simegoog.djvu/227

Rh brother William's death, "parted with her little property," and "thought at that time she should not live a twelvemonth." She lived for twenty-six years after, "alone" and disappointed. During that long period she gave expression to hopes which may be justly regarded as echoes of sentiments expressed by her brother. Unquestionably her mind was a mirror that truly reflected his. It is evident also from his conversation with Thomas Campbell that he entertained a horror of hypocrisy, which may have imposed silence on him when he would otherwise have spoken out. Once, in a philosophical paper, he did speak out on a future state of rewards and punishments. Had the matter not lain very near his heart, he would scarcely have written as he did. The subject of the paper was the Constitution of the Sun. Referring to the views of certain writers on the place of punishment for the wicked, he says—

"The sun, viewed in this light, appears to be nothing else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the first, or in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our system; all others being truly secondary to it. Its similarity to the other globes of the solar system with regard to its solidity, its atmosphere, and its diversified surface; the rotation upon its axis, and the fall of heavy bodies, leads us on to suppose that it is most probably inhabited, like the rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast globe.

"Whatever fanciful poets might say, in making the sun the abode of blessed spirits, or angry moralists devise, in pointing it out as a fit place for the