The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1

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_To_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1, 1808._

A Happy New Year to you, my dear Sneyd. It is so dark, I can hardly see
to write, and it has been pouring such torrents of rain, hail, and snow,
that I began to think, with John Langan, that the "old prophecies found
in a bog" were all accomplishing, and that Slievegaulry was beginning to
set out [Footnote: An old woman had, before Christmas, gone about the
neighbourhood saying that, on New Year's Day, Slievegaulry, a little
hill about five miles from Edgeworthstown, would come down with an
earthquake, and settle on the village, destroying everything.] on its
proposed journey. My mother has told you about these predictions, and
the horror they have spread through the country _entirely._ The old
woman who was the cause of the mischief is, I suppose, no bigger than a
midge's wing, as she has never been found, though diligent search has
been made for her. Almost all the people in this town sat up last night
to _receive_ the earthquake.

We have had the same physiognomical or character-telling _fishes_ that
you described to Honora. Captain Hercules Pakenham brought them from
Denmark, where a Frenchman was selling them very cheap. Those we saw
were pale green and bright purple. They are very curious: my father was
struck with them as much, or more, than any of the children; for there
are some wonders which strike in proportion to the knowledge, instead of
the ignorance, of the beholders. Is it a leaf? Is it galvanic? What is
it? I wish Henry would talk to Davy about it. The fish lay more quiet in
my father's hand than could have been expected; only curled up their
tails on my Aunt Mary's; tolerably quiet on my mother's; but they could
not lie still one second on William's, and went up his sleeve, which I
am told their German interpreters say is the worst sign they can give.
My father suggested that the different degrees of dryness or moisture in
the hands cause the emotions of these sensitive fish, but after _drying_
our best, no change was perceptible. I thought the pulse was the cause
of their motion, but this does not hold, because my pulse is slow, and
my father's very quick. It was ingenious to make them in the shape of
fish, because their motions exactly resemble the breathing, and panting,
and floundering, and tail-curling of fish; and I am sure I have tired
you with them, and you will be sick of these fish. [Footnote: It was
afterwards ascertained that these conjuring fish had been brought from
Japan by the Dutch, and were made of horn cut extremely thin. Their
movements were occasioned, as Mr. Edgeworth supposed, from the warm
moisture of the hand, but depended upon the manner in which they were
placed. If the middle of the fish was made to touch the warmest part of
the hand, it contracted, and set the head and tail in motion.]

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 1808._

We have just had a charming letter from Mrs. Barbauld, in which she asks
if we have read _Marmion_, Mr. Scott's new poem: we have not. I have
read _Corinne_ with my father, and I like it better than he does. In one
word, I am dazzled by the genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in
admiration of the taste and critical judgment of Italian literature
displayed through the whole work. But I will not I dilate upon it in
a letter; I could talk of it for three hours to you and my aunt. I
almost broke my foolish heart over the end of the third volume, and my
father acknowledges he never read anything more pathetic.

Pray remember my garden when the Beauforts come to us. It adds very much
to my happiness, especially as Honora and all the children have shares
in it, and I assure you it is very cheerful to see the merry,
scarlet-coated, busy little workwomen in their territories, sowing, and
weeding, and transplanting hour after hour.

_June 4._

Lady Elizabeth Pakenham and Mrs. Stewart and her son Henry, a fine
intelligent boy, and her daughter Kitty, who promises to be as gentle as
her mother, have been here. I liked Mrs. Stewart's conversation much,
and thought her very interesting.

_June 9._

My father and mother have gone to the Hills to settle a whole clan of
tenants whose leases are out, and who _expect that because_ they have
all lived under his Honour, they and theirs these hundred years, that
his Honour shall and will contrive to divide the land that supported ten
people amongst their sons and sons' sons, to the number of a hundred.
And there is Cormac with the reverend locks, and Bryan with the flaxen
wig, and Brady with the long brogue, and Paddy with the short, and Terry
with the butcher's-blue coat, and Dennis with no coat at all, and Eneas
Hosey's widow, and all the Devines, pleading and quarrelling about
boundaries and bits of bog. I wish Lord Selkirk was in the midst of
them, with his hands crossed before him; I should like to know if he
could make them understand his _Essay on Emigration._

My father wrote to Sir Joseph Banks to apply through the French
Institute for leave for Lovell to travel as a _literate_ in Germany, and
I have frequently written about him to our French friends; and those
passages in my letters were never answered. All their letters are now
written, as Sir Joseph Banks observed, under evident constraint and
fear.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth writes:

This summer of 1808 Mr. and Mrs. Ruxton and their two daughters passed
some time with us. My father, mother, and sister came also, and Maria
read out _Ennui_ in manuscript. We used to assemble in the middle of the
day in the library, and everybody enjoyed it. One evening when we were
at dinner with this large party, the butler came up to Mr. Edgeworth.
"Mrs. Apreece, sir; she is getting out of her carriage." Mr. Edgeworth
went to the hall door, but we all sat still laughing, for there had been
so many jokes about Mrs. Apreece, who was then travelling in Ireland,
that we thought it was only nonsense of Sneyd's, who we supposed had
dressed up some one to personate her; and we were astonished when Mr.
Edgeworth presented her as the real Mrs. Apreece. She stayed some days,
and was very brilliant and agreeable. She continued, as Mrs. Apreece and
as Lady Davy, to be a kind friend and correspondent of Maria's.

MARIA _to_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, AT EDINBURGH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 30, 1808._

How little we can tell from day to day what will happen to us or our
friends. I promised you a merry frankful of nonsense this day, and
instead of that we must send you the melancholy account of poor Dr.
Beddoes' death. [Footnote: Dr. Beddoes, who had married Anna Edgeworth,
was the author of almost innumerable books. His pupil, Sir Humphry Davy,
says: "He had talents which would have exalted him to the pinnacle of
philosophical eminence, if they had been applied with discretion."] I
enclose Emmeline's letter, which will tell you all better than I can.
Poor Anna! how it has been possible for her weak body to sustain her
through such trials and such exertions, GOD only knows. My father and
mother have written most warm and pressing invitations to her to come
here immediately, and bring all her children. How fortunate it was that
little Tom [Footnote: Thomas Lovell Beddoes, 1803-1849, author of _The
Bride's Tragedy_, and of _Death's Jest-Book._] came here last summer,
and how still more fortunate that the little fellow returned with Henry
to see his poor father before he died.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1809._

On Friday we went to Pakenham Hall. We sat down thirty-two to dinner,
and in the evening a party of twenty from Pakenham Hall went to a grand
ball at Mrs. Pollard's. Mrs. Edgeworth and I went, papa and Aunt Mary
stayed with Lady Elizabeth. Lord Longford acted his part of Earl Marshal
in the great hall, sending off carriage after carriage, in due
precedence, and with its proper complement of beaux and belles. I was
much entertained: had Mrs. Tuite, and mamma, and Mrs. Pakenham, and the
Admiral to talk and laugh with: saw abundance of comedy. There were
three Miss ----s, from the County of Tipperary, three degrees of
comparison--the positive, the comparative, and the superlative;
excellent figures, with white feathers as long as my two arms joined
together, stuck in the front of what were meant for Spanish hats. How
they towered above their sex, divinely vulgar, with brogues of true
Milesian race! Supper so crowded that Caroline Pakenham and I agreed to
use one arm by turns, and thus with difficulty found means to reach our
mouths. Caroline grows upon me every time I see her; she is as quick as
lightning, understands with half a word literary allusions as well as
humour, and follows and leads in conversation with that playfulness and
good breeding which delight the more because they are so seldom found
together. We stayed till between three and four in the morning. Lord
Longford had, to save our horses which had come a journey, put a pair of
his horses and one of his postillions to our coach: the postillion had,
it seems, amused himself at a _club_ in Castle Pollard while we were at
the ball, and he had amused himself so much that he did not know the
ditch from the road: he was ambitious of passing Mr. Dease's
carriage--passed it: attempted to pass Mr. Tuite's, ran the wheels on a
drift of snow which overhung the ditch, and laid the coach fairly down
on its side in the ditch. We were none of us hurt. The _us_ were my
mother, Mr. Henry Pakenham, and myself. My mother fell undermost; I
never fell at all, for I clung like a bat to the handstring at my side,
determined that I would not fall upon my mother and break her arm. None
of us were even bruised. Luckily Mrs. Tuite's carriage was within a few
yards of us, and stopped, and the gentlemen hauled us out immediately.
Admiral Pakenham lifted me up and carried me in his arms, as if I had
been a little doll, and set me down actually on the step of Mrs. Tuite's
carriage, so I never wet foot or shoe. And now, my dear aunt, I have
established a character for courage in overturns for the rest of my
life! The postillion was not the least hurt, nor the horses; if they had
not been the quietest animals in the world we should have been undone:
one was found with his feet level with the other's head. The coach could
not be got out of the deep ditch that night, but Lord Longford sent a
man to sleep in it, that nobody else might, and that no one might steal
the glasses. It came out safe and sound in the morning, not a glass
broken. Miss Fortescue, Caroline, and Mr. Henry Pakenham went up, just
as we left Pakenham Hall, to town or to the Park to Lady Wellesley, who
gives a parting ball, and then follows Sir Arthur to England.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 2, 1809. ._

This minute I hear a carman is going to Navan, and I hasten to send you
the _Cottagers of Glenburnie_, [Footnote: By Miss Elizabeth Hamilton,
with whom Miss Edgeworth had become intimate at Edinburgh in 1803.]
which I hope you will like as well as we do. I think it will do a vast
deal of good, and besides it is extremely interesting, which all _good_
books are not: it has great powers, both comic and tragic. I write in
the midst of Fortescues and Pakenhams, with dear Miss Caroline P., whom
I like every hour better and better, sitting on the sofa beside me,
reading Mademoiselle Clairon's _Memoirs_, and talking so entertainingly,
that I can scarcely tell what I have said, or am going to say.

I like Mrs. Fortescue's conversation, and will, as Sophy desires,
converse as much as possible with obliging and ever-cheerful Miss
Fortescue. But indeed it is very difficult to mind anything but
Caroline.

_Feb. 5._

Three of the most agreeable days I ever spent we have enjoyed in the
visit of our Pakenham Hall friends to us. How delightful it is to be
with those who are sincerely kind and well-bred: I would not give many
straws for good breeding without sincerity, and I would give at any time
ten times as much for kindness _with_ politeness as for kindness without
it. There is something quite captivating in Lady Longford's voice and
manners, and the extreme vivacity of her countenance, and her quick
change of feelings interested me particularly: I never saw a woman so
little spoiled by the world. As for Caroline Pakenham, I love her. They
were all very polite about the reading out of _Emilie de Coulanges_, and
took it as a mark of kindness from me, and not as an exhibition. Try to
get and read the _Life of Dudley, Lord North_, of which parts are highly
interesting. I am come to the Ambition in _Marie de Menzikoff_, which I
like much, but the love is mere brown sugar and water. The mother's
blindness is beautifully described. My father says "Vivian" will stand
next to "Mrs. Beaumont" and "Ennui"; I have ten days' more work at it,
ten days' more purgatory at other corrections, and then, huzza! a heaven
upon earth of idleness and reading, which is my idleness. Half of
_Professional Education_ is printed.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 1809._

Indeed you are quite right in thinking that the expressions of affection
from my uncle and you are more delightful to me than all the compliments
or admiration in the world could be. It is no new thing for me to be
happy at Black Castle, but I think I was particularly happy there this
last time. You both made me feel that I added to the pleasures of your
fireside, which after all, old-fashioned or not, are the best of all
pleasures. How I did laugh! and how impossible it is not to laugh in
some company, or to laugh in others. I have often wondered how my ideas
flow or ebb without the influence of my will; sometimes when I am with
those I love, flowing faster than tongue can utter, and sometimes
ebbing, ebbing, till nought but sand and sludge are left.

We have been much entertained with _Le petit Carilloneur._ I would send
it to you, only it is a society book; but I do send by a carman two
volumes of Alfieri's _Life_ and Kirwan's _Essay on Happiness_, and the
Drogheda edition of _Parent's Assistant_, which, with your leave, I
present to your servant Richard.

The Grinding Organ [Footnote: Afterwards published in 1827 in a small
volume, entitled _Little Plays._] went off on Friday night better than I
could have expected, and seemed to please the spectators. Mrs. Pakenham
brought four children, and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson two sons, Mr. and Mrs.
Keating two daughters, which, with the Beauforts, Molly, George, and the
rest of the servants, formed the whole audience. I am sure you would
have enjoyed the pleasure the Bristows showed on seeing and hearing Mary
Bristow perform her part, which she did with perfect propriety. Sophy
and Fanny were excellent, but as they were doomed to be the _good_
children, they had not ample room and verge enough to display powers
equal to the little termagant heroine of the night. William in his Old
Man (to use the newspaper style) was correct and natural. Mr. Edgeworth
as the English Farmer evinced much knowledge of true English character
and humour. Miss Edgeworth as the Widow Ross, "a cursed scold," was
quite at home. It is to be regretted that the Widow Ross has no voice,
as a song in character was of course expected; the Farmer certainly gave
"a fair challenge to a fair lady." His Daniel Cooper was given in an
excellent style, and was loudly encored.

_April 28._

The Primate [Footnote: William Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh, fifth son
of the third Earl of Bute.] was very agreeable during the two days he
spent here. My father travelled with him from Dublin to Ardbraccan, and
this reputed silent man never ceased talking and telling entertaining
anecdotes till the carriage stopped at the steps at Ardbraccan. This I
could hardly credit till I myself heard his Grace burst forth in
conversation. The truth of his character gives such value to everything
he says, even to his humorous stories. He has two things in his
character which I think seldom meet--a strong taste for humour, and
strong feelings of indignation. In his eye you may often see alternately
the secret laughing expression of humour, and the sudden open flash of
indignation. He is a man of the warmest feelings, with the coldest
exterior I ever saw--a master mind. I could not but be charmed with him,
because I saw that he thoroughly appreciated my father.

* * * * *

_Tales of Fashionable Life_ were published in June 1809, and greatly
added to the celebrity of their authoress. "Almeria" is the best, and
full of admirable pictures of character. In all, the object is to depict
the vapid and useless existence of those who live only for society.
Sometimes the moralising becomes tiresome. "Vraiment Miss Edgeworth est
digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans votre triste utilite,"
said Madame de Stael to M. Dumont when she had read the Tales. In that
age of romantic fiction an attempt to depict life as it really was took
the reading world by surprise.

"As a writer of tales and novels," wrote Lord Dudley in the _Quarterly
Review_, "Miss Edgeworth has a very marked peculiarity. It is that of
venturing to dispense common sense to her readers, and to bring them
within the precincts of real life and natural feeling. She presents them
with no incredible adventures or inconceivable sentiments, no
hyperbolical representations of uncommon characters, or monstrous
exhibitions of exaggerated passion. Without excluding love from her
pages, she knows how to assign to it its just limits. She neither
degrades the sentiment from its true dignity, nor lifts it to a
burlesque elevation. It takes its proper place among the passions. Her
heroes and heroines, if such they may be called, are never miraculously
good, nor detestably wicked. They are such men and women as we see and
converse with every day of our lives, with the same proportional mixture
in them of what is right and what is wrong, of what is great and what is
little."

Lord Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_, said: "The writings of
Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular an union of sober sense and
inexhaustible invention, so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes
manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune,
and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment, and of
the illusions by which they are so often obstructed, that we should
separate her from the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and speak of her
Tales as works of more serious importance than much of the true history
and solemn philosophy that comes daily under our inspection.... It is
impossible, I think, to read ten pages in any of her writings without
feeling, not only that the whole, but that every part of them, was
intended to do good."

* * * * *

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 1809._

A copy of _Tales of Fashionable Life_ [Footnote: The first set
containing "Ennui," "Madame de Fleury," "Almeria," "The Dun," and
"Manoeuvring," in three volumes.] reached us yesterday in a Foster
frank: they looked well enough,--not very good paper, but better than
_Popular Tales._ I am going to write a story called "To-day," [Footnote:
Never written.] as a match for "To-morrow," in which I mean to show that
Impatience is as bad as Procrastination, and the desire to do too much
to-day, and to enjoy too much at present, is as bad as putting off
everything till to-morrow. What do you think of this plan? Write next
post, as, while my father is away, I am going to write a story for his
birthday. My other plan was to write a story in which young men of all
the different professions should act a part, like the "Contrast" in
higher life, [Footnote: "Patronage."] or the "Freeman Family," only
without princes, and without any possible allusion to our own family. I
have another sub-plan of writing "Coelebina in search of a Husband,"
without my father's knowing it, and without reading _Coelebs_, that I
may neither imitate nor abuse it.

I daresay you can borrow Powell's _Sermons_ from Ardbraccan or Dr.
Beaufort; the Primate lent them to my father. There is a charge on the
connection between merit and preferment, and one discourse on the
influence of academical studies and a recluse life, which I particularly
admire, and wish it had been quoted in _Professional Education._

Mr. Holland, a grand-nephew of Mr. Wedgwood's, and son to a surgeon at
Knutsford, Cheshire, and intended for a physician, came here in the
course of a pedestrian tour--spent two days--very well informed. Ask my
mother when she goes to you to tell you all that Mr. Holland told us
about Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Marcet, who is the author of
_Conversations on Chemistry_--a charming woman, by his account.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Aug. 22, 1809._

I have just been reading Carleton's _Memoirs_, and am in love with the
captain and with his general, Lord Peterborough; and I have also been
reading one of the worst-written books in the language, but it has both
instructed and entertained me--Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Johnson._ He
has thrown a heap of rubbish of his own over poor Johnson, which would
have smothered any less gigantic genius.

M. Dumont writes from Lord Henry Petty's: "Nous avons lu en societe a
Bounds, _Tales of Fashionable Life._ Toute societe est un petit theatre.
'Ennui' et 'Manoeuvring' ont eu un succes marque, il a ete tres vif.
Nous avons trouve un grand nombre des dialogues du meilleur comique,
c'est a dire ceux ou les personnages se developpent sans le vouloir, et
sont plaisants sans songer a l'etre. Il y a des scenes charmantes dans
'Madame de Fleury.' Ne craignez pas les difficultes, c'est la ou vous
brillez."

_To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

_Nov 30._

We have had a bevy of wits here--Mr. Chenevix, Mr. Henry Hamilton,
Leslie Foster, and his particular friend Mr. Fitzgerald. Somebody asked
if Miss White [Footnote: The then well-known Miss Lydia White, for many
years a central figure in London literary society.] was a bluestocking.
"Oh yes, she is; I can't tell you how blue. What is bluer than
blue?"--"_Morbleu_," exclaimed Lord Norbury. Miss White herself comes
next week.

_Dec. 11._

Among other things Miss White entertained my father with was a method of
drawing the human figure, and putting it into any attitude you please:
she had just learned it from Lady Charleville--or rather not learned it.
A whole day was spent in drawing circles all over the human figure, and
I saw various skeletons in chains, and I was told the intersections of
these were to show where the centres of gravity were to be; but my
gravity could not stand the sight of these ineffectual conjuring tricks,
and my father was out of patience himself. He seized a sheet of paper
and wrote to Lady Charleville, and she answered in one of the most
polite letters I ever read, inviting him to go to Charleville Forest,
and he will go and see these magical incantations performed by the
enchantress herself.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

_December 1809._

I have spent five delightful days at Sonna and Pakenham Hall. Mrs.
Tuite's kindness and Mr. Chenevix's various anecdotes, French and
Spanish, delighted us at Sonna; and you know the various charms both for
the head and heart at Pakenham Hall.

I have just been reading, for the fourth time, I believe, _The Simple
Story_, which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might
write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I
was totally incapable of thinking of Mrs. Inchbald or anything but Miss
Milner and Doriforth, who appeared to me real persons whom I saw and
heard, and who had such power to interest me, that I cried my eyes
almost out before I came to the end of the story: I think it the most
pathetic and the most powerfully interesting tale I ever read. I was
obliged to go from it to correct _Belinda_ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is
going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I
really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone
Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces: and really, I have
not the heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman
said, "Mend _you!_ better make a new one."

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1810._

I have had a very flattering and grateful letter from Lydia White; she
has sent me a comedy of Kelly's--_A Word to the Wise._ She says the
_Heiress_ is taken from it. Just about the same time I had a letter from
Mrs. Apreece: [Footnote: Afterwards Lady Davy.] she is at Edinburgh, and
seems charmed with all the wits there; and, as I hear from Mr. Holland,
[Footnote: Afterwards Sir Henry Holland.] the young physician who was
here last summer, she is much admired by them. Mrs. Hamilton and she
like one another particularly; they can never cross, for no two human
beings are, body and mind, form and substance, more unlike. We thought
Mr. Holland, when he was here, a young man of abilities--his letter has
fully justified this opinion: it has excited my father's enthusiastic
admiration. He says Walter Scott is going to publish a new poem; I do
not augur well of the title, _The Lady of the Lake._ I hope this lady
will not disgrace him. Mr. Stewart has not recovered, nor ever will
recover, the loss of his son: Mr. Holland says the conclusion of his
lectures this season was most pathetic and impressive--"placing before
the view of his auditors a series of eight-and-thirty years, in which he
had zealously devoted himself to the duties of his office; and giving
the impression that this year would be the period of his public life."

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