Life of Count Rumford. 213 



after an absence of twenty years ! Such interesting events may 

 be conceived, but cannot be described. No language could 

 paint the agitation of my mind upon seeing before me a being 

 whose existence had always appeared to me like the vision of a 

 dream. 



" As Sally means to write to you herself, I shall leave it to 

 her to inform you of the courageous resolution she has taken, 

 to go with me to Bavaria. God grant she may be happy there ! 

 She will likewise tell you whether she likes me as well as she 

 expected, and whether I am kind to her. As to myself, all I 

 can say is, that I like her very much indeed. She is just what 

 I wished to find her, an unaffected, cheerful, pleasing, amiable, 

 Good Girl. 



" We shall probably stay in England about two months 

 longer, and shall then set off for Munich, from which place you 

 shall hear from me. In the mean time, accept my best wishes 

 for your health and prosperity. 



" I am, Dear Sir, with unfeigned Regard and Esteem, 

 " Yours, most affectionately, 



" RUMFORD. 



" To COLONEL LOAMMI BALDWIN, 

 Woburn, near Boston, Massachusetts." 



This letter may properly come in the order of its 

 principal topic. 



" WOBURN, 28th June, 1796. 



" MY DEAR COUNT, It has given me inexpressible satisfac- 

 tion, on reading your kind letter of the 26th of March last, to 

 find that your daughter is safe arrived ; so much natural affec- 

 tion and love are met. It must be gratifying in the highest 

 degree to meet your dear and only child, whom you had seen 

 but for a moment in the first stage of her existence ; and al- 

 though she might have seen hej father, yet her organs were too 

 tender and undefined to retain the least idea of him, more 

 than twenty-one years have passed since you thus met before. 

 Scenes tender like this are not for the pen to describe, they 



