In Miss Herschel's charming letters we find a vivid sketch of the
family avocations at this period:---
"My brother applied himself to perfect his mirrors, erecting in
his garden a stand for his twenty-foot telescope: many trials
were necessary before the required motions for such an unwieldy
machine could be contrived. Many attempts were made by way of
experiment against a mirror before an intended thirty-foot
telescope could be completed, for which, between whiles (not
interrupting the observations with seven, ten, and twenty-foot,
and writing papers for both the Royal and Bath Philosophical
Societies), gauges, shapes, weights, &c, of the mirror were
calculated, and trials of the composition of the metal were
made. In short, I saw nothing else and heard nothing else
talked of but about these things when my brothers were
together. Alex was always very alert, assisting when anything
new was going forward; but he wanted perseverance, and never
liked to confine himself at home for many hours together.
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