Life of Count Rumford. 603 



dear father, that you and Madame de Rumford cannot 

 make it out to live together, when you seem so friendly 

 to each other ! Here it is three or four times only 

 since I have been here that she has been out to see us, 

 and even teazing us to go oftener to visit her. It 

 strikes me she cannot be in her right mind.' 



" ' Her mind is as it ever has been,' replied the 

 Count, ' to act differently from what she appears/ ' 



The Countess intimates that the lady was very penu- 

 rious, while the Count was lavish; "money fading 

 away in his hands like water when any of his plans were 

 concerned." 



Of the mode of life and of the occupations of Count 

 Rumford in the interval between his daughter's return 

 to him and his death, some of the most interesting 

 information is here deferred, because it will be found in 

 a most authentic form as given by a friend, whose com- 

 memorative tribute after his decease will be copied into 

 these pages. The Countess says that he kept himself 

 busily occupied with his scientific and literary pursuits, 

 though he became more and more disposed to seclude 

 himself from the world. He narrowed his circle of 

 intimacies, but found much satisfaction in the compan- 

 ionship of the few friends who came closest to him. He 

 was devoting his mind -and pen with much zeal and 

 interest to the composition of a work on "The Nature 

 and Effects of Order" that almost deified object of his 

 regard, already mentioned as offering to him the guid- 

 ing rule and method of life. It is to be regretted that 

 he left only fragments of that intended treatise, which, as 

 found among his papers, did not appear to his friends to 

 admit of publication, and which I infer were destroyed 

 by his daughter when his effects came into her hands. 



