o his hands!--And
all this time improve myself too, not only in science, but in nature,
by tracing in the little babes what all mankind are, and have been,
from infancy to riper years, and watching the sweet dawnings of
reason, and delighting in every bright emanation of that ray of
divinity, lent to the human mind, for great and happy purposes, when
rightly pointed and directed.

There is no going farther after these charming recollections and
hopes, for they bring me to that grateful remembrance, to whom, under
God, I owe them all, and also what I have been for so happy a period,
and what I am, which will ever be my pride and my glory; and well it
may, when I look back to my beginning with humble acknowledgment, and
can call myself, dearest Mr. B., _your honoured and honouring, and, I
hope to say, in time, useful wife_, P.B.

LETTER XCVII

MY DEAREST MR. B.,

Having in my former letters said as much as is necessary to let you
into my notion of the excellent book you put into my hands, and
having touched those points in which the children of both sexes may be
concerned (with some _art_ in my intention, I own), in hope that they
would not be so much out of the way, as to make you repent of the
honour you have done me, in committing the dear Miss Goodwin to my
care; I shall now very quickly set myself about the proposed little
book.

You have been so good as to tell me (at the same time that you
disapprove not these my specimen letters as I may call them), that you
will kindly accept of my intended present, and encourage me to proceed
in it; and as I shall leave one side of the leaf blank for your
corrections and alterations, those corrections will be a fine help and
instruction to me in the pleasing task which I propose to myself, of
assisting in the early education of your dear children. And as I
may be years in writing it, as the dear babies improve, as I myself
improve, by the opportunities which their advances in years will give
me, and the experience I shall gain, I may then venture to give my
notions on the more material and nobler parts of education, as well
as the inferior: for (but that I think the subjects above my present
abilities) Mr. Locke's book would lead me into several remarks, that
might not be unuseful, and which appear to me entirely new; though
that may be owing to my slender reading and opportunities, perhaps.

But what I would now touch upon, is a word or two still more
particula