Historical Materials on the Herschels
A Knipping's letter to J Herschel
In January of 1848, just after attending 98-year-old Caroline Herschel on her deathbed in Hannover, Germany, Anna Knipping, who was a widow and the eldest daughter of Caroline's younger brother Johann Dietrich (1755-1827), wrote to John Herschel in Hawkhurst, England.
I was impressed very much with the original text of her letter when I read it for the first time. I translated the letter in my biographical sketch of Caroline (published in "Hoshi-no Techo", Spring, 1991). I was pleased to make the first publication for Japanese readers and at the same time I was concerned about if it was really a good translation.
Recently a member of the Society in Hokkaido sent me a letter (cf Newsletter No 94) and succeedingly a copy of a dozen of pages extracted from "Hypatia's Heritage" (Japanese version published by Hokkaido University in 1999). Here I would like to quote from the copy the same part as my translation mentioned in the above, that is, A Knipping's letter to J Herschel (omitting the latter 1/3, however), and the original text together.
Japanese translation from
"Female Scientists in Male Attire" (1999) p 173-4
Japanese translation from
"Hoshi-no Techo" Vol 52 (1991) p 101
"Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel"
(London, 1879) p 346
January 13, 1848
... I felt almost a sense of joyful relief at the death of my aunt, in the thought that now the unquiet heart was at rest. All that she had of love to give was concentrated on her beloved brother. At his death she felt herself alone. For after those long years of separation she could not but find us all strange to her, and no one could ever replace his loss. Time did indeed lessen and soften the overpowering weight of her grief, and then she would regret that she had ever left England, and condemned herself to live in a country where nobody cared for astronomy. I shared her regret, but I knew too well that even in England she must have found the same blank. She looked upon progress in science as so much detraction from her brother's fame, and even your investigations would have become a source of estrangement had she been with you. She lived altogether in the past, and she found the present not only strange but annoying. Now, thank God, she has gone where she will find again all that she loved. I shall long feel her loss, for I prized and loved her dearly, and it is to me a most precious recollection that she loved me best of all those here, admitted to me to closer intimacy, and allowed me to know something even of her inner life.
Quoted from the Newsletter No 95 issued by the Herschel Society of Japan
Translation by Tatsuro Kimura