Children's questions are often simply sublime: the question your three-years-old asked was of these—"Who sanded the seashore?"
To MISS RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, May 29, 1829.
I cannot forbear writing specially to you, as I know you will feel so much about Captain Beaufort's appointment to the Hydrographership; I wish poor William had been permitted the pleasure of hearing of it. [Footnote: William Edgeworth had died of consumption on 7th May after a two months' illness.] It would have given him pleasure even on his dying bed, noble, generous creature as he was; he would have rejoiced for his friend, and have felt that merit is sometimes rewarded in this world. This appointment is, in every respect, all that Captain Beaufort wished for himself, and all that his friends can desire for him. As one of the first people in the Admiralty said, "Beaufort is the only man in England fit for the place."
Very touching letters have come to us from people whom we scarcely knew, whom William had attached so much; and many whom he had employed speak of him as the kindest of masters, and as a benefactor whose memory will be ever revered.
To MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Sept. 27, 1829.
I am now able, with the consent of all my dear guardians, to write with my own hand to assure you that I am quite well.
I enjoyed the snatches I was able to have of Wordsworth's conversation, and I think I had quite as much as was good for me. He has a good philosophical bust, a long, thin, gaunt face, much wrinkled and weatherbeaten: of the Curwen style of figure and face, but with a more cheerful and benevolent expression.
While confined to my sofa and forbidden my pen, I have been reading a good deal: 1st, Cinq Mars, a French novel, with which I think you would be charmed, because I am; 2nd, The Collegians, in which there is much genius and strong drawing of human nature, but not elegant: terrible pictures of the passions, and horrible, breathless interest, especially in the third volume, which never flags till the last huddled twenty pages. My guardians turn their eyes reproachfully upon me. Mr. William Hamilton has been with us since the day before Wordsworth came, and we continue to like him.