Caroline was honored with the title "Assistant to the King's Astronomer" with the stipend of fifty pounds a year. It will thus be seen that the kingly idea of astronomy had not traveled far from what it was when every really respectable court had a retinue of singers, musicians, clowns, dancers, palmists and scientists to amuse the people somewhat ironically called "nobility." King George the Third paid his Cook, Master of the Kennels, Chaplain and Astronomer the same amount. The father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan was "Elocutionist to the King," and was paid a like sum. When Doctor Watson heard that Herschel was about to leave Bath he wrote, "Never bought King honor so cheap." It was nominated in the bond that Herschel should act as "Guide to the heavens for the diversification of visitors whenever His Majesty wills it." But it was also provided that the astronomer should be allowed to carry on the business of making and selling his telescopes. Herschel's enthusiasm for his beloved science never abated. But often his imagination outran his facts. Great minds divine the thing first--they see it with their inward eye. Yet there may be danger in this, for in one's anxiety to prove what he first only imagined, small proof suffices. Thus Herschel was for many years sure that the moon had an atmosphere and was inhabited; he thought that he had seen clear through the Milky Way and discovered empty space beyond; he calculated distances, and announced how far Castor was from Pollux; he even made a guess as to how long it took for a gaseous nebula to resolve itself into a planetary system; he believed the sun was a molten mass of fire--a thing that many believed until they saw the incandescent electric lamp--and in various other ways made daring prophecies which science has not only failed to corroborate, but which we now know to be errors. But the intensity of his nature was both his virtue and his weakness. Men who do nothing and say nothing are never ridiculous. Those who hope much, believe much, and love much, make mistakes. Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping-stones of genius. In all, Herschel contributed sixty-seven important papers to the proceedings of the Royal Society, and in one of these, which was written in his eightieth year, he says, "My enthusiasm has occasionally led me astray, and I wish now to correct a statement which I made to you twenty-eight years ago." He then enumerates some particular statement about the height of mountains in the moon, and corrects it. Truth was more to Herschel than consistency. Indeed, the earnestness, purity of purpose, and simplicity of his mind stamp him as one of the world's great men. At Windsor he built a two-story observatory. In the wintertime every night when the stars could be seen, was sacred. No matter how cold the weather, he stood and watched; while down below, the faithful Caroline sat and recorded the observations that he called down to her.