moonlight night (when the stars would be mostly invisible), so that it
might not interfere with his regular labours.

Poor Carolina was horrified at the house at Datchet, which seemed
terribly desolate and poor, even to her modest German ideas; but
William declared his willingness to live permanently and cheerfully
upon "eggs and bacon" now that he was at last free to do nothing on
earth but observe the heavens. Night after night he and Carolina
worked together at their silent task--he noting the small features with
his big telescope, she "sweeping for comets" with a smaller glass or
"finder." Herschel could have had no more useful or devoted assistant
than his sister, who idolized him with all her heart. Alexander, too,
came to stay with them during the slack months at Bath, and then the
whole strength of the family was bent together on their labour of love
in gauging the heavens.

But what use was it all? Why should they wish to go star-gazing? Well,
if a man cannot see for himself what use it was, nobody else can put
the answer into him, any more than they could put into him a love for
nature, or for beauty, or for art, or for music, if he had it not to
start with. What is the good of a great picture, a splendid oratorio,
a grand poem? To the man who does not care for them, nothing; to the
man who loves them, infinite. It is just the same with science. The
use of knowledge to a mind like Herschel's is the mere possession of
it. With such as he, it is a love, an object of desire, a thing to be
sought after for its town sake; and the mere act of finding it is in
itself purely delightful. "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and
the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is
better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine
gold. She is more precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst
desire are not to be compared unto her." So, to such a man as
Herschel, that peaceful astronomer life at Datchet was indeed, in the
truest sense of those much-abused words, "success in life." If you had
asked some vulgar-minded neighbour of the great Sir William in his
later days whether the astronomer had been a successful man or not, he
would doubtless have answered, after his kind, "Certainly. He has been
made a knight, has lands in two counties, and has saved 35,000 pounds."
But if you had asked William Herschel himself, he would probably have
said, with his usual mixture