[Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals by Maria Mitchell]@TWC D-Link bookMaria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals CHAPTER VI 20/33
I am afraid I shall have no letter to Leverrier, for every one seems to dislike him.
Lady Herschel says he is one of the few persons whom she ever asked for an autograph; he was her guest, and he refused! Just as I was coming away, Sir John bustled up to me with a sheet of paper, saying that he thought I would like some of his aunt's handwriting and he would give it to me.
He had before given me one of his own calculations; he says if there were no "war, pestilence, or famine," and one pair of human beings had been put upon the globe at the time of Cheops, they would not only now fill the earth, but if they stood upon each other's heads, they would reach a hundred times the distance to Neptune! I turned over their scrap-books, and Sir John's poetry is much better than many of the specimens they had carefully kept, by Sir William Hamilton.
Sir William Hamilton's sister had some specimens in the book, and also Lady Herschel and her brother. Lady Herschel is the head of the house--so is Mrs.Airy--so, I suspect, is the wife in all well-ordered households! I perceived that Sir John did not take a cup of tea until his wife said, "You can have some, my dear." Mr.Airy waits and waits, and then says, "My dear, I shall lose all my flesh if I don't have something to eat and drink." I am hoping to get to Paris next week, about the 23d.
I have had just what I wanted in England, as to society. "November 26.
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