172
Caroline Lucretia Herschel.
[1824.
FROM J. F. W. HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL.
CATANIA SICILY, July 2, 1824.
Dear Aunt,—
The last time I wrote to you from Slough I little expected that my next would be dated from the foot of Etna—but I mean this to be the farthest point of my wanderings, and from hence to turn my steps northwards. I am not without some hopes that my time will so far serve as to enable me to pay you a visit at Hanover, as I long very much to see you among your and my Hanoverian friends. . . . . My mother will have told you of my arrangements,—of the alteration which my plans of life have undergone (and for which I see every day more reason to be thankful), and of my present excursion, so that the date of this will not surprise you. To-morrow I hope to see the sun set from the top of Etna, and will keep this open to give you an account of my excursion there. Meanwhile let me congratulate you on the good accounts my mother gives me of your present state of health and spirits, the knowledge of which has enabled me to give real pleasure to many who, when they heard I was related to you, enquired with the greatest interest respecting you. Among the rest I may mention M. Arago, of the Observatory at Paris, and M. Fourrier, the secretary of the Institute, who has just been reading the Éloge of my dear father at a meeting of that body, in which I am sure (from the associations I had with him, and the written communications that passed between us on the subject) your own name will stand associated with his in a manner that cannot fail to be gratifying to you. I have not (of course, as I quitted Paris before it was read, or even written) seen it, but the man is of the right sort, and I will endeavour to procure copies of it for you and my uncle. Indeed, at Paris I find (as where do I not find it?) universal justice rendered to my father's merits, and a degree of
