The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2

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* * * * *

"Taking for Granted" was laid aside by Miss Edgeworth for ten years
after this. When Mr. Ticknor was at Edgeworthstown in 1835, he says:

* * * * *

Miss Edgeworth was anxious to know what instances I had ever witnessed
of persons suffering from "taking for granted" what proved false, and
desired me quite earnestly, and many times, to write to her about it;
"for," she added, "you would be surprised if you knew how much I pick up
in this way." "The story," she said, "must begin lightly, and the early
instances of mistake might be comic, but it must end tragically." I told
her I was sorry for this. "Well," said she, "I can't help it, it must be
so. The best I can do for you is, to leave it quite uncertain whether it
is possible the man who is to be my victim can ever be happy again or
not."

* * * * *

On her father's death, Miss Edgeworth had resigned the management of his
estates to their new owner, her half-brother Lovell, but, in the
universal difficulties which affected the money market in 1826, she was
induced to resume her post, acting in everything as her brother's agent,
but taking the entire responsibility. By consummate care and prudence
she weathered the storm which swamped so many in this financial crisis.
The great difficulty was paying everybody when rents were not to be had;
but she undertook the whole, borrowing money in small sums, paying off
encumbrances, and repaying the borrowed money as the times improved;
thus enabling her brother to keep the land which so many proprietors
were then obliged to sell, and yet never distressing the tenants.

The second part of _Harry and Lucy_ was published this year, having been
written at various intervals since 1813. Like its predecessor, it had as
its object to induce children to become their own instructors.

* * * * *

MARIA _to_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 27, 1826_.

These last three weeks I have had multitudes of letters to write, but
not one of them have I written with the least pleasure, except that sort
of pleasure which we have in doing what we think a duty. Lovell has put
the management of his affairs into my hands, and the receiving of his
rents; and this is, except one letter which I wrote to the author of
_Granby_, as soon as we had finished that delightful book, the only
letter of pleasure in which I have indulged myself.

SONNA, _April 6_.

Most grateful am I, my dearest aunt, for your wonderful preservation
after such a terrible fall! Often and often as I have gone down those
three steep stairs have I feared that some accident would occur. Thank
GOD that you are safe! I really have but this one idea. We have had
agreeable letters from Harriet E. and Sophy Fox, who are very happy at
Cloona: the accounts of their little daily employments and pleasures are
the most cheering thoughts I can call up at this moment. Happy in the
garden looking at crocuses, contriving new beds, etc.; happy in the
house, when Harriet reads out, while Sophy works, _Granby_ at night and
Peel's and Robinson's speeches by day.

_May 27_.

You have seen in the papers the death of Lady Scott. In Sir Walter's
last letter he had described her sufferings from water on the chest, but
we had no idea the danger was so immediate. She was a most kind-hearted,
hospitable person, and had much more sense and more knowledge of
character and discrimination than many of those who ridiculed her. I
know I never can forget her kindness to me when I was ill at Abbotsford.
Her last words at parting were, "GOD bless you! we shall never meet
again." At the time it was much more likely that I should have died, I
thought, than she. Sir Walter said he had been interrupted in his letter
by many domestic distresses. The first two pages had been begun two
months ago, and were in answer to a letter of mine inquiring about the
truth of his losses, etc. Of these he spoke with cheerful fortitude, but
with no bravado. He said that his losses had been great, but that he had
enough left to live on; that he had had many gratifying offers of
assistance, but that what he had done foolishly he would bear manfully;
that he would take it all upon his own shoulders, and that he had great
comfort in knowing that Lady Scott was not a person who cared about
money, and that "Beatrice," as he calls Anne Scott, bore her altered
prospects with cheerfulness. "She is of a very generous disposition, and
poor Janie proffered her whole fortune as if it had been a gooseberry."

After writing this much the letter appeared to have been thrown aside
and forgotten to be sent, till he was roused again by a letter from me
about poor Mr. Jephson. The domestic distresses which had interrupted
the course of his thoughts were, the illness of his dear little grandson
Lockhart, one of the finest and most engaging children I ever saw; and
then Lady Scott's illness and death. He says that the letters of Malachy
Malagrowther cost him but a day apiece.

_July 10_.

Sir Humphry Davy has been with us since Thursday, and his visit has been
delightful; he has always been kind and constant in his friendship to
us. I had expressed a great wish to see the "Discourses" which he
annually addressed to the Royal Society, as President, on the
presentation of the medals. He has been urged to publish them, but to
this he has never yet consented. I had the courage--indeed, I thought at
the time the rashness--to ask him to let me see the MS. of one which I
was particularly anxious to see, as it related to Dr. Brinkley: Sir
Humphry was so very kind to have a copy made for me of _all_ his
Discourses. I found them fully equal to my expectations, quite worthy of
the genius and reputation of Sir Humphry Davy, and becoming the
President of the Royal Society of England; giving a complete view of the
discoveries and progress of science in England within the last six
years, compressed into the smallest compass compatible with clearness,
written with all the dignity of perfect simplicity and candour, like one
sensible to national glory, but free from national jealousy; whose great
object as a philosopher is the general advancement of science over the
whole world, and whose great pleasure is in conferring well-earned
praise. His addresses to those to whom he presents the medals are
NOBLE--always appreciating the past with generous satisfaction, yet
continually exciting to future exertion. In each new discovery he opens
views beyond what the discoverer had foreseen, and from each new
invention shows how fresh combinations present themselves, so that in
the world of science there must be room enough for the exertions of all:
the best and truest moral against envy, and all those petty jealousies
which have disgraced scientific as well as literary men.

Travelling, and his increased acquaintance with the world, has enlarged
the _range_ without lowering the _pitch_ of Sir Humphry's mind--an
allusion I have borrowed from an entertaining essay on training hawks
sent to me by Sir John Sebright. Do you know that there is at this
moment a gentleman in Ireland, near Belfast, who trains hawks and goes
a-hawking--a Mr. Sinclair?

Sir Humphry repeated to us a remarkable criticism of Buonaparte's on
Talma's acting: "You don't play Nero well; you gesticulate too much; you
speak with too much vehemence. A despot does not need all that; he need
only _pronounce. Il sait qu'il se suffit_." "And," added Talma, who told
this to Sir Humphry, "Buonaparte, as he said this, folded his arms in
his well-known manner, and stood as if his attitude expressed the
sentiment."

Sir Humphry thinks that, of all of royal race he has seen, legitimate or
illegitimate, _noble par l'epee_, or noble by "just hereditary sway,"
the late Emperor of Russia was the most really noble-minded and the
least ostentatious. A vast number of his munificent gifts to men of
letters are known only to those by whom they were received. He has
frequently sent tokens of approbation to scientific men in various
foreign countries for inventions in arts and sciences which he had found
useful in his dominions. A _caisse_ arrived from Russia for Sir Humphry,
which he thought were some mineralogical specimens which had been
promised to him; but on opening it there appeared a superb piece of
plate, with a letter from the Emperor of Russia presenting it to him, as
a mark of gratitude for the safety lamp. The design on the plate, the
Emperor adds, was his own: it represents the genius of fire, with his
bow and arrows broken.

Among other good things which Sir Humphry accomplished in his travels
was the abolition of the _corda_, of ancient use in Naples,--an
instrument of torture by which the criminal was hung up by a cord tied
round his joined wrists, and then pulled down and let fall from a
height, dislocating his wrists to a certainty, and giving a chance of
breaking his arms and legs. This instrument chanced to be set up near
the hotel where Sir Humphry and Lady Davy resided: they could not bear
the sight, and changed their lodgings. The next time Sir Humphry was at
Court the King asked why he had changed his residence. Sir Humphry
explained, and expressed himself so strongly, that he awakened dormant
Royal feeling, and this instrument of torture was abolished. Sir Humphry
had previously represented to our Queen Caroline, then at Naples, that
here was an opportunity of doing good, and of rendering herself
deservedly popular. She was struck with the idea at the time, but forgot
it; and then Sir Humphry took it up, and with the assistance of the
public opinion of all the English, it was accomplished.

Yesterday, when I came down to breakfast, I found Sir Humphry with a
countenance radiant with pleasure, and eager to tell me that Captain
Parry is to be sent out upon a new Polar expedition.

_August 14_.

This day, my dearest aunt, our wishes have been accomplished--the
sacred, awful vow has been pronounced, and Harriet and Mr. Butler drove
from the church door to Cloona. [Footnote: Harriet, second daughter of
the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth, married the Rev. Richard Butler, Rector of
Trim, and afterwards Dean of Clonmacnoise.]

Lucy bore the trials of the day wonderfully well. She was at the
wedding, and much agitated when it came to the conclusion and the
parting; but there was, fortunately, something to be done immediately
afterwards--Sophy's [Footnote: Mrs. Barry Fox.] child to be christened;
a very nice, pretty little child it is--Maxwell.

William Beaufort alarmed us by a sudden illness on Saturday: however, he
was able to appear today and perform both ceremonies, and does not seem
to have suffered by the double exertion.

_To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

BLACK CASTLE, _Sept. 3, 1826_.

Thank you for wishing to be with me, but I am sure it will be better for
you to be at the sea. Here, though I am obliged to think of actual
business between-times, I have every motive and means for diversion for
myself, both on my own account and on my aunt's. We run in and out, and
laugh and talk nonsense; and every little thing amuses us together: the
cat, the dog, the hog, Mr. Barry, or a _parachute_ blown from the
dandelion.

_Nov. 19_.

Bess Fitzherbert has written an entertaining letter to Mrs. Barry, in
which she mentions one of the dishes they had just had at dinner at
Pozzo, between Modena and Bologna: cold boiled eels, with preserved
pears, a toothpick or skewer stuck in each to take them up by, instead
of a fork. My aunt's friend, Madame Boschi, near Bologna, offered to
send a garden-chair drawn by bullocks for Bess, the road not being
passable for _common cattle_.

_To_ C.S. EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 26, 1826_.

I send your account, and have done my best. I have not read _Boyne
Water_, but have got Lindley Murray's _Memoir_, and thank you for
mentioning it. Harriet and Mr. Butler come to-morrow. Sophy Fox and
Barry, and their beautiful and amiable little Maxwell, are here. How you
will like that child, and make it see "upper air!" How long since those
times when you used to show its mother and Harriet upper air! Do you
remember how you used to do it to frighten me, and how I used to shut my
eyes when you threw them up, and you used to call to me to look? Ah! _le
bon temps!_ But we are all very happy now, and it is delightful to hear
a child's voice cooing, or even crying again in this house. Never did
infant cry less than Maxwell: in short, it is the most charming little
animal I ever saw. "Animal yourself, sir!" [Footnote: Mr. Edgeworth,
admiring a baby in a nurse's arms, called it "a fine little animal." To
which the nurse indignantly replied, "Animal yourself, sir!"]

Pakenham ornamented the library yesterday with holly, and crowned
plaster-of-Paris Sappho with laurels, and Mrs. Hope's picture with
myrtle (i.e. box), and perched a great stuffed owl in an ivy bush on the
top of a great screen which shades the sofa by the fire from the window
at its back. I am excessively happy to be at home again, after my four
months' absence at Black Castle.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 28, 1826_.

After spending four months with you, it is most delightful to me to
receive from you such assurances that I have been a pleasure and a
comfort to you. I often think of William's most just and characteristic
expression, that you have given him a desire to live to advanced age, by
showing him how much happiness can be felt and conferred in age, where
the affections and intellectual faculties are preserved in all their
vivacity. In you there is a peculiar habit of allowing constantly for
the _compensating_ good qualities of all connected with you, and never
unjustly expecting impossible perfections. This, which I have so often
admired in you, I have often determined to imitate; and in this my
sixtieth year, to commence in a few days, I will, I am resolved, make
great progress. "Rosamond at sixty," says Margaret.

We are all a very happy party here, and I wish you could see at this
moment sitting opposite to me on sofa and in arm-chair the mother and
daughter and grand-child.

_To_ MRS. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 26, 1827_.

By some strange chance I was taken away from home just after the time
when Colonel Stewart's pamphlet on India, which you were so kind as to
send me, arrived; in short, I never read it till a few days ago. I am in
admiration of it; it is beautifully written, with such clearness, lucid
order, simplicity, dignity, strength, and eloquence--eloquence resulting
from strong feeling. The views of its vast subject are comprehensive and
masterly; the policy sound, both theoretically and practically
considered; the morality as sound as the policy, indeed no policy can be
sound unless joined with morality. The sensibility and philanthropy that
not only breathe but live and act in this book are of the true, manly,
enduring sort--not the affected, sickly, spurious kind, which is
displayed only for the trick of the poet or orator. It is a book which a
good and wise man must ever rejoice in having written, and which will be
satisfactory to him even to the last moment of his life.

Have you seen the _Tales of the O'Hara Family_--the second series? They
are of unequal value; one called the "Nowlans" is a work of great
genius. Another book has much amused us, Captain Head's _Rough
Sketches_, most animated and masterly sketches of his journey across the
Pampas. There is much information and much good political economy
condensed in his three chapters on speculators.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 4, 1827_.

I went with Pakenham to meet my mother at Castle Pollard, and we had
such a nice long talk in the carriage coming back, our tongues never
intermitting one single second, I believe. I am glad you liked my
graceful gentleman-like bear, and his graceful gentleman-like Italian
leader. [Footnote: A travelling showman and bear.] We have had a
succession of actors and actresses, as I may call them, personating
beggars, all at the last gasp of distress; so perfect, too, was one
Englishwoman that she set at defiance all the combined ingenuity of the
Library in cross-questioning her, and after writing a long letter for
her to a Rev. Mr. Strainer, of Athlone, I was quite at a loss to decide
whether she was a cheat or not, when one of the Longford police officers
chanced to dine with us, I mentioned her, and out came the truth; she
had imposed on him and every one at Longford, and had borrowed a child
to pass for her own. We sent for our distressed lady, who was very "sick
and weak with a huge blister on her chest," and low voice and delicate
motions. Oh! if you had seen her when the police officer came into the
room and charged her with the borrowed child. Her countenance, voice,
and motions all at once changed; her voice went up at once to
_scold-pitch_, and turning round on her chair she faced the chief; but
words in writing cannot do justice to the scene. I must act it for you.

We are now reading the _Voyage of the "Blonde" to the Sandwich Islands_,
with the remains of the King and the Queen. [Footnote: King Kamehameha
II., of the Sandwich Islands, and his Queen, who died of the measles in
John Street, Adelphi, in 1824.] Pray get this book, it will delight you.
Of the _Blonde_, you know the present Lord Byron is commander--the name
strikes the ear continually--new fame, new associations; reverting, too,
to the old Commodore Byron's sort of fame. How curious, how fleeting
"this life in other's breath!"

A little box of curiosities from my most amiable American Jewess my
mother presented to me this morning at the breakfast table: I was in an
ecstasy, but shortlived was my joy, for I was thunderstruck the next
instant by my mother's catching my arm and stopping my hand with the
vehement exclamation, "Stop, stop, child, you don't know what you are
doing."--"No, indeed, ma'am, I don't--what _am_ I doing?" She took the
_wreath_ of cotton wool from my passive hand and showed me, wrapped up in
it, a humming-bird, luckily unhurt, unsquelched. The humming-bird's nest
is more beautiful than the creature itself. Poor Lord Liverpool--no one
can wish his existence prolonged.

The painful family of death
More hideous than their queen.

_April 8_.

I am quite well and in high good-humour and good spirits in consequence
of having received the whole of Lovell's half-year's rents in full, with
pleasure to the tenants, and without the least fatigue or anxiety to
myself.

We are reading the second part of _Vivian Grey_, which we like better
than the first. There is a scene of gamesters and swindlers wonderfully
well done. I know who wrote _Almack's_. Lady de Ros tells me it is by
Mrs. Purvis, sister to Lady Blessington; this accounts for both the
knowledge of high, and the habits of low, life which appear in the book.
"Poor dear Almack's," Lady de Ros says, is not what it was--when people
were poor in London, and there were few private balls, Almack's was all
in all. Her sailor son is going to publish a Journal of a Tour,
including the United States and Niagara.

_To_ C.S. EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 12, 1827_.

Now I have done all my agent business, I will tell you what Mr. Hope, in
a letter I had from him this morning, says of _Almack's_. "It might have
been a pretty thing, but I think it but a poor one. Of all slangs, that
of fashion is easiest overdone. People do not _hold forth_ about what is
with them a matter of course. Willis, or his waiters, might have
furnished all the characteristic materials. The author ever and anon
makes up for want of wit by stringing together common French milliner
phrases, which have no merit but that of being exotics in England. The
point consists in his _italics_. Besides, he only describes the
proceedings, not the spirit of the institution of Almack's. It was
rather a bold thing in London to put FEASTING out of fashion, and to
make a seven-shilling ball the thing to which all aspired to be
admitted, and many without the least hope of succeeding. It was the
triumph of aristocracy over mere wealth. It put down the Grimes's of
former days, with their nectarines and peaches at Christmas, and in so
far it improved society."

All this is very true, but I do not think he does justice to the author.
I particularly like the dialogue in the third volume, where Lady Anne
Norbury debits and credits her hopes of happiness with her two admirers:
no waiting-maid could have written that. In the second volume, also, I
think there is a scene between Lord and Lady Norbury in their
dressing-room, about getting rid of their guests and making room for
others, which is nicely touched: the Lord and Lady are politely
unfeeling; it is all kept within bounds.

Mr. Hope begs me to read _Truckleborough Hall_. Of late novels he says
it is that which has amused him most. "Both sides of the political
question are reviewed most impartially; both quizzed a little, and the
reader left in doubt to which the author leans. The transition in the
hero from rank Radicalism to a seat on the Treasury Bench, while
persuading himself all the time that he remains consistent, is
exceedingly well managed. Interest in the story there is none, because
the subject admits not of it. Like the high-finished Dutch pictures,
mere truth, well and minutely told, makes all its merit."

Then follows a sentence so complimentary to myself that I cannot copy
it, and perhaps you have had enough. I trust you will give me credit,
dear Harriet and Sneyd, for copying for you other people's letters, when
I have nothing in my own but stupid pounds, shillings, and pence.

In a letter from my friend Mr. Ralston, from Philadelphia, he tells me
that seven volumes of Sir Walter Scott's _Life of Napoleon_ have been
already printed there, and reviewed in the _North American Review_.
Scott sends his MS. at the same time to London and to America. I tremble
for this publication. Anne Scott writes to Harriet that her father is so
busy writing, that she scarcely sees anything of him, though they are
alone together at Abbotsford. Lockhart is much admired in London for his
beauty.

_To_ CAPTAIN BASIL HALL [Footnote: Who had lent a volume of his London
_Journal_ to Miss Edgeworth to read.]

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 25, 1827_.

I really cannot express to you how much you have gratified me by the
proof of confidence you have given me. No degree of praise or admiration
could flatter me so much: confidence implies something much higher--real
esteem for the character. I thank you; you shall not find your
confidence misplaced. I trust you will not think I have gone beyond your
permission in considering my own family now with me--viz. Mrs.
Edgeworth, my sisters, and my brother--as myself. The _Journal_ was read
aloud in our library: not a line or a word of it has been copied; and
though some passages have, I know, sunk indelibly into the memories of
those present, you may rest perfectly secure that they will never _go
out_ beyond ourselves. No vanity will ever tempt any one of us to boast
of what we have been allowed to read; we shall strictly adhere to your
terms, and never mention or allude to the book. It is delightful, most
interesting, and entertaining. You may, perhaps, imagine, by conceiving
yourself in my place, remote in the middle of Ireland, _how_
entertaining and interesting it must be to be thus suddenly transported
into the midst of the best company in London, scientific, political, and
fashionable; and not merely into the midst of them, but behind the
scenes with you, and after seeing and hearing and knowing your private
opinion of all. Considering all this, and further, that numbers of the
persons you mention in your _Journal_ we were well acquainted with when
we were in London, you may, perhaps, comprehend how much pleasure, of
various kinds, we enjoyed while we read on.

The first page I opened upon was the character of Captain Beaufort. Do
not shrink at the notion of his most intimate friend, or his sister Mrs.
Edgeworth, or his nieces Fanny and Sophy, having seen this character.
You need not: we all agree that it does him perfect justice.

Your manner of mentioning Lydia White was quite touching, as well as
just. She was all you say of her, and her house and society were the
most agreeable of the sort in London, since the time of Lady Crewe.
Lydia White, besides being our kind friend, was a near connection of
ours by the marriage of her nephew to a cousin of ours; and we have had
means of knowing her solid good qualities, as well as those brilliant
talents which charmed in society. You may guess, then, how much we were
pleased by all you said of her. Of all the people who ever sold
themselves to the world, I never knew one who was so well paid as Lydia
White, or any one but herself who did not, sooner or later, repent the
bargain; but she had strength of mind never to expect more than the
world can give, and the world in return behaved to the last remarkably
well to her.

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