Nothing but bankruptcy
had all the while been running through my silly head, when
looking at the sums of my weekly accounts, and knowing they
could be but trifling in comparison with what had been and had
yet to be paid in town. I will only add, that from this time
the utmost activity prevailed to forward the completion of the
forty-foot."
In recognition of his scientific triumphs, the honorary degree of LL.D
was conferred upon Herschel, in 1786, by the University of Oxford. They
were triumphs that well merited such a recognition. He had already made
some important observations on the nature of double stars, on the
dimensions of the telescopic planets, and had begun his famous
investigations into the composition of the nebulae,--those clusters of
stars and nebulous matter which had previously proved such a problem to
astronomers. The remarkable phenomenon of a periodical change of
intensity in certain stars, which wax and wane in radiance like a
revolving light, had also excited his attention.
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