I suppose nobody yet has completely mastered the tides, therefore I may well content myself with my inability to comprehend what relates to them. But instead of plaguing you with an endless enumeration of my difficulties, I had better tell you some of the passages which gave me, ignoramus as I am, peculiar pleasure.... I am afraid I shall transcribe your whole book if I go on to tell you all that has struck me, and you would not thank me for that—you, who have so little vanity, and so much to do better with your time than to read my ignorant admiration. But pray let me mention to you a few of the passages that amused my imagination particularly, viz., 1st, the inhabitant of Pallas going round his world—or who might go—in five or six hours in one of our steam carriages; 2nd, the moderate-sized man who would weigh two tons at the surface of the sun—and who would weigh only a few pounds at the surface of the four new planets, and would be so light as to find it impossible to stand from the excess of muscular force! I think a very entertaining dream might be made of a man's visit to the sun and planets—these ideas are all like dreamy feelings when one is a little feverish. I forgot to mention (page 58) a passage on the propagation of sound. It is a beautiful sentence, as well as a sublime idea, "so that at a very small height above the surface of the earth, the noise of the tempest ceases and the thunder is heard no more in those boundless regions, where the heavenly bodies accomplish their periods in eternal and sublime silence."
Excuse me in my trade of sentence-monger, and believe me, dear Mrs. Somerville, truly your obliged and truly your affectionate friend,
Maria Edgeworth.
I have persuaded your dear curly-headed friend, Harriet, to add her own observations; she sends her love to you; and I know you love her, otherwise I would not press her to write her own say.
FROM MISS JOANNA BAILLIE TO MRS. SOMERVILLE.
Hampstead, February 1st, 1832.
I am now, thank God! recovered from a very heavy disease, but still very weak. I will not, however, delay any longer my grateful acknowledgments for your very flattering gift of your Preliminary Dissertation. Indeed, I feel myself greatly honoured by receiving such a mark of regard from one who has done more to remove the light estimation in which the capacity of women is too often held, than all that has been accomplished by the whole sisterhood of poetical damsels and novel-writing authors. I could say much more on this subject were I to follow my own feelings; but I am still so weak that writing is a trouble to me, and I have nearly done all that I am able.
God bless and prosper you!
Yours gratefully and truly,
J. Baillie.