nd feelings had been shaped and influenced in a totally
different path. More bitter still, we are told, she came to know that in
her great sorrow and inextinguishable love she was all alone. And
bitterest of all was the feeling that, in losing her brother she had
lost the glory of her life, the source of her intellectual enjoyment.
"You don't know," she wrote to a friend, "the blank of life after
having lived within the radiance of genius." Yet to live in this
blankness, and to do the best she could with it, became the work of
Caroline Lucretia Herschel at the age of threescore years and ten,--an
age when most of us have already put off our cares and anxieties, but
when she began to enter on a new life, with new habits, new duties, and
new associations.

Her interest in astronomical pursuits never slackened, and she watched
with eagerness the labours and successes of her nephew. The respect paid
to her in society as a "woman of science" was not unwelcome, though she
affected to make light of it. "You must give me leave," she wrote to Sir
John, "to send you any publications you can think of, without mentioning
anything about paying for them. For it is necessary I should every now
and then lay out a little of my spare cash in that, for the sake of
supporting the reputation of being a learned lady; (there is for you!)
for I am not only looked at for such a one, but even stared at here in
Hanover!" It was with unaffected modesty she deprecated the honorary
membership of the Irish Academy, conferred on one who, she said, had
not for many years discovered even a comet; yet she was by no means
insensible to the distinction. Every man of scientific eminence who
visited Hanover visited this aged lady; and her presence in the theatre,
even in her latest years, was a constant source of attraction. Such was
the simple frugality of her habits, that she experienced an actual
difficulty in disposing of her income. She affirmed that the largest sum
she could spend upon herself was L50 a year; and the annual pension of
L100, left by her brother, she refused, or else devoted the quarterly or
half-yearly payment to the purchase of some handsome present for her
nephew or niece.

Such was Caroline Lucretia Herschel; and as such she was a remarkable
proof that the rarest womanly gifts of affectionate forethought and
loving devotion may exist in combination with intellectual strength and
scientific enthusiasm.

Of the force, keenness, and