The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol 1 | Page 7

to the expression of her countenance, but if we may be allowed to say so, she is not a beauty, and is very low. She was dressed in white and gold," etc. etc.
The children all desire their love: they were playing the other day at going to Black Castle, and begged me to be Aunt Ruxton, which I assured them I would if I could; but they insisted on my being Sophy, Letty, and Margaret at the same time, and were not quite contented at my pleading this to be out of my power.
To MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
CLIFTON, _March 9, 1792._
I wish, my dear Sophy, that you could know how often I think of you and wish for you, whenever we see or hear anything that I imagine you would like. How does your ward go on? My mother desires me to say the kindest things to you, and assure yourself, my dear Sophy, that when my mother says the kindest, they are always at the same time the truest. She is not a person ever to forget a favour, and the care and trouble you are now bestowing on little Thomas Day will be remembered probably after you have forgotten it. But my father interrupts me at this moment, to say that if I am writing to Sophy I must give him some room at the end, so I shall leave off my fine speeches. We spend our time very agreeably here, and have in particular great choice of books. I don't think the children are quite as happy here as they used to be at home, it is impossible they should be, for they have neither the same occupations nor liberty. It is however "restraint that sweetens liberty," and the joy they show when they run upon the Downs, hunting fossils, and clambering, is indeed very great. Henry flatters himself that he shall some time or other have the pleasure of exhibiting his collection to Cousin Sophy, and rehearses frequently in the character of showman. Dr. Darwin has been so good as to send him several fossils, etc., with their names written upon them, and he is every day adding to his little stock of _larning._ There is a very sensible man here who has also made him presents of little things which he values much, and he begins to mess a great deal with gums, camphor, etc. He will at least never come under Dr. Darwin's definition of a fool. "A fool, Mr. Edgeworth, you know, is a man who never tried an experiment in his life." My father tells me that Henry has acquired a taste for improving himself, and that all he has now to fear is my taste for improving him.
We went the other day to see a collection of natural curiosities at a Mr. Broderip's, of Bristol, which entertained us very much. My father observed he had but very few butterflies, and he said, "No, sir, a circumstance which happened to me some time ago, determined me never to collect any more butterflies. I caught a most beautiful butterfly, thought I had killed it, and ran a pin through its body to fasten it to a cork: a fortnight afterward I happened to look in the box where I had left it, and I saw it writhing in agony: since that time I have never destroyed another."
My father has just returned from Dr. Darwin's, where he has been nearly three weeks: they were extremely kind, and pressed him very much to take a house in or near Derby for the summer. He has been, as Dr. Darwin expressed it, "breathing the breath of life into the brazen lungs of a clock" which he had made at Edgeworthstown as a present for him. He saw the first part of Dr. Darwin's _Botanic Garden_; ￡900 was what his bookseller gave him for the whole! On his return from Derby, my father spent a day with Mr. Keir, the great chemist, at Birmingham: he was speaking to him of the late discovery of fulminating silver, with which I suppose your ladyship is well acquainted, though it be new to Henry and me. A lady and gentleman went into a laboratory where a few grains of fulminating silver were lying in a mortar: the gentleman, as he was talking, happened to stir it with the end of his cane, which was tipped with iron,--the fulminating silver exploded instantly, and blew the lady, the gentleman, and the whole laboratory to pieces! Take care how you go into laboratories with gentlemen, unless they are like Sir Plume skilled in the "nice conduct" of their canes.
Have you seen any of the things that have been lately published about the negroes? We have just read a very small pamphlet of about ten