Herschel passed his boyish years. He saw them, in silent but
ceaseless industry, busied about things which had no apparent concern
with the world outside the walls of that well-known house, but which,
at a later period of his life, he, with an unrivalled eloquence,
taught his countrymen to appreciate as foremost among those living
influences which but satisfy and elevate the noblest instincts of our
nature. What sort of intercourse passed between the father and the
boy may be gathered from an incident or two which he narrated as
having impressed themselves permanently on the memory of his youth.
He once asked his father what he thought was the oldest of all
things. The father replied, after the Socratic method, by putting
another question: 'And what do you yourself suppose is the oldest of
all things?' The boy was not successful in his answers, thereon the
old astronomer took up a small stone from the garden walk: 'There, my
child, there is the oldest of all the things that I certainly know.'
On another occasion his father is said to have asked the boy, 'What
sort of things, do you think, are most alike?' The delicate,
blue-eyed boy, after a short pause, replied, 'The leaves of the same
tree are most like each other.' 'Gather, then, a handful of leaves of
that tree,' rejoined the philosopher, 'and choose two that are
alike.' The boy failed; but he hid the lesson in his heart, and his
thoughts were revealed after many days. These incidents may be
trifles; nor should we record them here had not John Herschel
himself, though singularly reticent about his personal emotions,
recorded them as having made a strong impression on his mind. Beyond
all doubt we can trace therein, first, that grasp and grouping of
many things in one, implied in the stone as the oldest of things;
and, secondly, that fine and subtle discrimination of each thing out
of many like things as forming the main features which characterized
the habit of our venerated friend's philosophy."