sets before himself an end to be attained, and controls all his efforts
towards its attainment. He toiled so hard as a musician, because he
wanted to be something more. Every spare moment of the day, and
frequently many hours of the night, he gave up to the pursuits which
were gradually leading him into the path best fitted for his genius.
The study of mathematics proved but a preliminary to the study of
optics; and an accident made him once for all an astronomer.

A common two-foot telescope falling into his hands, revealed to him
the wonders of the heavens. His imagination was inspired by their
contemplation; with ever-increasing enthusiasm he gazed on the revolving
planets, on the flashing stars; he determined to fathom more profoundly
the constellated depths. A larger instrument was necessary, and Herschel
wrote to London for it; but the price demanded proved far beyond the
resources of the sanguine organist. What should he do? He was not the
man to be beaten back by a difficulty: as he could not buy a telescope,
he resolved to make one; an instrument eighteen or twenty feet long,
which would reveal to him the phases of the remotest planets. And
straightway the musician entered on a multitude of ingenious
experiments, so as to discover the particular metallic alloys that
reflected light with the greatest intensity, the best means of giving
the parabolic figure to the mirrors, the necessary degree of polish, and
other practical details. In his eager pursuit he enlisted the services
of his loving and intelligent sister. "I was much hindered in my musical
practice," she writes, "by my help being continually wanted in the
execution of the various contrivances; and I had to amuse myself by
making the tube of pasteboard for the glasses which were to arrive from
London--for at that time no optician had settled at Bath. But when all
was finished, no one besides my brother could get a glimpse of Jupiter
or Saturn, for the great length of the tube would not allow it to be