My dear Mary Somerville, whom I am proud to call my friend, and that she so calls me. I could say much on this point, but I dare not. I received your letter from Mr. Greig last night, and thank you very gratefully. If my head were less confused I should do it better, but the pride I have in thinking of you as philosopher and a woman cannot be exceeded. I shall read your letter many times over. My sister and myself at so great an age are waiting to be called away in mercy by an Almighty Father, and we part with our earthly friends as those whom we shall meet again. My great monster book is now published, and your copy I shall send to your son who will peep into it, and then forward it to yourself. I beg to be kindly and respectfully remembered to your husband; I offer my best wishes to your daughters.... Yours, my dear Friend, Very faithfully, JOANNA BAILLIE. My sister begs of you and all your family to accept her best wishes. * * * * * FROM SIR JOHN HERSCHEL TO MRS. SOMERVILLE. _18th March, 1844._ MY DEAR MRS. SOMERVILLE, To have received a letter from you so long ago, and not yet to have thanked you for it, is what I could hardly have believed myself--if the rapid lapse of time in the uniform retirement in which we live were not pressed upon me in a variety of ways which convince me that as a man grows older, his sand, as the grains get low in the glass, slips through more glibly, and steals away with accelerated speed. I wish I could either send you a copy of my Cape observations, or tell you they are published or even in the press. Far from it--I do not expect to "go to press" before another year has elapsed, for though I have got my catalogues of Southern nebulae and Double stars reduced and arranged, yet there is a great deal of other matter still to be worked through, and I have every description of reduction entirely to execute myself. These are very tedious, and I am a very slow computer, and have been continually taken off the subject by other matter, forced upon me by "pressure from without." What I am now engaged on is the monograph of the _principal_ Southern Nebulae, the object of which is to put on record every ascertainable particular of their actual appearance and the stars visible in them, so as to satisfy future observers whether _new stars_ have appeared, or changes taken place in the nebulosity. To what an extent this work may go you may judge from the fact that the catalogue of visible stars actually mapped down in their places within the space of less than a square degree in the nebula about [Greek: e] Argus which I have just completed comprises between 1300 and 1400 stars. This is indeed a