The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2
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Maria Edgeworth >> The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2
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All you say of the ill-managed dinner of wits and scientific men I have
often felt. There must be a mixture of nonsense with sense, or it will
not amalgamate: all wits and no fools, all actors and no audience, make
dinners dull things. The same men in their boots, as you say, are quite
other people. "Two or three ladies, too"--we were delighted with your
finding them useful as well as agreeable on such occasions.
Your account of Sidney Smith's conversation is excellent, and the manner
in which you took his criticism showed how well you deserved it. He will
be your friend in all the future, and I do not know any man whom I
should wish more to make my friend: supereminent talents and an
excellent heart, which in my opinion almost always go together. His
remarks on the views you should take of America, to work out your own
purpose in softening national animosities, are excellent; also all he
says of American egotism and nationality. But I should be as ready to
forgive vanity in a nation as in an individual, and to make it turn to
good account. I have always remarked that little and envious minds are
the most acute in detecting vanity in others, and the most intolerant of
it. Having nothing to be proud or vain of, they cannot endure that
others should enjoy a self-complacency they cannot have.
There is a sentence in one of Burke's letters, which, as far as England
is concerned, might do for a motto for your intended travels: "America
and we are no longer under the same crown; but if we are united by
mutual goodwill and reciprocal good offices, perhaps it may do almost as
well."
Will you, my dear sir, trust me with more of your _Journals_? I think
you must see, by the freedom of this letter, that you have truly pleased
and obliged me: I have no other plea to offer. It is a common one in
this country of mine--common, perhaps, to human nature in all places as
well as Ireland--to expect that, when you have done much, you will do
more; and you will, won't you? If I could get your little Eliza to say
this in a coaxing voice for us, we should be sure of your compliance.
_To_ MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 10, 1827_.
I get up every morning at seven o'clock, and walk out, and find that
this does me a vast deal of good. After three-quarters of an hour's
walk, [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth continued her early walks for many
years. A lady who lodged in the village used to be roused by her maid in
the morning with "Miss Edgeworth's walking, ma'am; it's eight o'clock."]
I come in to the delight of hearing Fanny read the oddest book I ever
heard--a Chinese novel translated into French; a sort of Chinese
_Truckleborough Hall_; politicians and courtiers, with mixture of love
and flowers, and court intrigue, and challenging each other to make
verses upon all occasions.
My garden is beautiful, and my mother is weeding it for me at this
moment. A seedswoman of Philadelphia, to whom Mr. Ralston applied to
purchase some seeds for me, as soon as she heard the name, refused to
take any payment for a parcel of forty different kinds of seeds. She
said she knew my father, as she came from Longford: her name was Hughes.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 26_.
The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by telling who, among
literary and scientific people, we should wish to come here next day.
Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschel. Yesterday morning, as I was
returning from my morning walk at half-past eight, I saw a bonnet-less
maid on the walk, with letter in hand, in search of me. When I opened
the letter, I found it was from Mr. Herschel! and that he was waiting
for an answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably
surprised; and now that he has spent twenty-four hours here, and that he
is gone, I am confirmed in my opinion; and if the fairy were to ask me
the question again, I should more eagerly say, "Mr. Herschel, ma'am, if
you please." It was really very kind of him to travel all night in the
mail, as he did, to spend a few hours here. He is not only a man of the
first scientific genius, but his conversation is full of information on
all subjects, and he has a taste for humour and playful nonsense, though
with a melancholy exterior.
His companion, Mr. Babbage, and he, saw the Giant's Causeway on a stormy
day, when the foamy waves beat high against the rocks, and added to the
sublimity of the scene. Then he went from the great sublime of Nature to
the sublime of Art. He arrived at the place where Colonel Colby is
measuring the base line, just at the time when they had completed the
repetition of the operation; and he saw, by the instrument, which had
not been raised from the spot, that the accuracy of the repetition was
within half a dot--the twelve-thousandth part of an inch.
Mr. Herschel has travelled on the Continent. He was particularly pleased
with the character of the Tyrolese--their national virtue founded on
national piety. One morning, wakening in a cottage inn, he rose, and
called in vain in kitchen and parlour: not a body was to be seen, not a
creature in yard or stable. At last he heard a distant sound: listening
more attentively, and following the sound, he came to a room remote from
that in which he had slept, where he found all the inhabitants joining
in a hymn, with beautiful voices.
You may remember having seen in the newspapers an account of a
philosopher in Germany who made caterpillars manufacture for him a veil
of cobweb. The caterpillars were enclosed in a glass case, and, by
properly-disposed conveniences and impediments, were induced to work
their web up the sides of the glass case. When completed it weighed
four-fifths of a grain. Herschel saw it lying on a table, looking like
the film of a bubble. When it collapsed a little, and was in that state
wafted up into the air, it wreathed like fine smoke. Chantrey, who was
present, after looking at it in silent admiration, exclaimed, "What a
fool Bernini was to attempt transparent draperies in stone!"
Have you heard of the live camelopard, "twelve foot high, if he is an
inch, ma'am?" Herschel is well acquainted with him, and was so fortunate
as to see the first interview between him and a kangaroo: it stood and
gazed for one instant, and the next leaped at once over the camelopard's
head, and he and his great friend became hand and glove.
_To_ MR. BANNATYNE.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 14, 1827_.
I send the letter you wished for--not to Clery, who is dead, but to
Louis Bousset, who was the Abbe Edgeworth's servant, and after his death
was taken into Louis XVIII.'s household, accompanied the Royal family to
Hartwell, returned with them to France, and now lives on a pension from
the French Government and his wife's income; she was widow to the King's
saddler. They showed much respect, my brother Sneyd says, to our pious
cousin the Abbe Edgeworth's memory, and he was much edified by their
manner of living together, Bousset and his wife--he a Catholic, and she
a German Protestant, "perfect Christian happiness thoroughly existing
between two persons of different Churches, but of the same faith."
Though I admire the instance and exception to general rules, I should
not wish a similar experiment to be often repeated, being very much of
Dr. Johnson's opinion, that there are so many causes naturally of
disagreement between people yoked together, that there is no occasion to
add another unnecessarily.
_To_ MR. BANNATYNE.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 4, 1827_.
I am very glad to hear that the author of _Cyril Thornton_ is Mrs.
Bannatyne's _nephew_. I have just finished reading it, and had made up
my opinion of it, and so had all my family, before we knew that the
author was any way connected with you. I am not weary of repeating that
I think, and that we all think it the most interesting novel we have
read for years; indeed, we could not believe it to be fiction. We read
it with all the intense interest which the complete belief in reality
commands. Officers of our acquaintance all speak to the reality and
truth of the scenes described. Military men and gentlemen are delighted
with _Cyril Thornton_, because he is a gentleman, ay, every inch a
gentleman; and with the cut in his face, and all the hashing and mashing
he met with in the wars, we are firmly and unanimously of opinion that
he must be very engaging. We hope that the author is like his hero in
all saving these scars and the loss of his arm; but were the likeness
exact even in these, he would be sure of interesting at Edgeworthstown;
and we hope that, if ever he comes to Ireland, you and Mrs. Bannatyne
will do us the favour to persuade him to come to see us, and to bring
his charming wife. We hear she is charming; and, from the good taste and
good feeling of his writings, we can readily take it for granted that
his choice must be charming, in the best sense of that hackneyed, but
still comprehensive word. There is a peculiar delicacy in this book,
which delights from being accompanied, as it is, with the strongest
evidence of deep sensibility.
* * * * *
Mrs. Mary Sneyd, sister of the second and third Mrs. Edgeworths, who had
partially lived with her brother in Staffordshire after the death of her
sister Charlotte, returned in 1828 to spend the rest of her life at
Edgeworthstown. Here the beautiful and venerable old lady was a central
figure in the family home, where all the family vied in loving
attentions to her. Mrs. Farrar [Footnote: Author of _The Children's
Robinson Crusoe_, etc.] describes her there:--
"It was a great pleasure to me to see the sister of two of Mr.
Edgeworth's wives,--one belonging to the same period, and dressed in the
same style as the lovely Honora. She did not appear till lunch-time,
when we found her seated at the table in a wheel-chair, on account of
her lameness. She reminded me of the pictures of the court beauties of
Louis XIV. Her dress was very elaborate. Her white hair had the effect
of powder, and the structure on it defies description. A very white
throat was set off to advantage by a narrow black velvet ribbon,
fastened by a jewel. The finest lace ruffles about her neck and elbows,
with a long-waisted silk dress of rich texture and colour, produced an
effect that was quite bewitching. She was wonderfully well preserved for
a lady over eighty years of age, and it was pleasant to see the great
attention paid her by all the family. She was rather deaf, so I was
seated by her side and requested to address my conversation to her. When
lunch was over she was wheeled into the library, and occupied herself in
making a cotton net to put over the wall-fruit to keep it from the
birds. It was worth a journey to Edgeworthstown to see this beautiful
specimen of old age."
* * * * *
MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 13, 1828_.
We had a serious alarm this morning, and serious danger, but it is
perfectly over now, and no damage done but what a few days' work of
plasterer and carpenter can repair. At seven o'clock this morning a
roaring was heard in the servants' hall, and Mulvanny, [Footnote:
Mulvanny, the knife boy.] who had put on the blower, found the chimney
on fire, and Anne [Footnote: Anne, ladies'-maid.] saw dreadful smoke
breaking out in the passage going from the anteroom of my aunt's
dressing-room. Barney Woods, [Footnote: The steward.] perceiving that
it was no common affair of a chimney on fire, had the sense to ring the
workman's bell. I was dressed, heard it, and Anne met me coming from my
room to inquire what was the matter, and told me--indeed her face told
me! Lovell was up and ready--most active and judicious. Thirty men were
assembled; water in abundance. Frank Langan indefatigable and most
courageous. The long ladder was put up against the house near the pump;
up the men went, and bucket after bucket poured down, Mulvanny standing
on the top of the chimney. Meantime the great press, next the maid's
room, was torn down by men working for life and death, for the smoke was
bursting through, and the whole wall horribly hot. The water poured
into the chimney would not, for half an hour, go down to the bottom;
something stopped it. A terrible smell of burning wood. The water ran
through all manner of flues and places and flooded the whole ceiling of
the hall. Holes were made to let it through, or the whole ceiling would
have come down _en masse_; the water poured through in floods on the
floor; Margaret [Footnote: The housemaid.] and boys sweeping it out of
the hall door continually. While the men were at work under Lovell's
excellent orders, Honora and I were having all papers and valuables
carried out, for we knew that if the flames reached the garrets nothing
could save the house. All the title-deed boxes, and lease presses, and
all Lovell's, and all your papers, and my grandfather's books, and my
father's picture, were safe on the grass in less than one hour. It took
three hours before the fire was extinguished, or, I should say, got
under. The pump was pumped dry, but Lovell had sent long before a cart
with barrels for water to the river--tons of water were used, pouring,
pouring incessantly, and this alone could have saved us.
By eleven o'clock all the boxes and papers, and pictures, were in their
places, and we sent for the chimney-sweepers, not the old ones, who, as
we rightly guessed, were the cause of the mischief. The chimney has been
broken open, and a boy has been working incessantly tearing down an
incrustation of soot--immense pieces of black _tufo_,--in fact, the
chimney became a volcano--fire, water, and steam all operating together.
The fire was found still burning inside at five this evening, but is all
out now, the boy has been up at the top.
The zeal, the sense, the generosity, the courage of the people, is
beyond anything I can describe, I can only feel it. But what astonished
me was their steadiness and silence, no advising or pushing in each
other's way--all working and obeying. Lovell had lines of boys from the
ladder to the cow's pool handing the buckets passed up by the men on the
ladder to the frightful top. Thank GOD not a creature was hurt.
* * * * *
Honora Edgeworth adds:
* * * * *
I need add nothing to what Maria has said about others, but I must say
about herself, that nobody who has seen her in small alarms, such as the
turning of a carriage, or such things, could believe the composure,
presence of mind, and courage she showed in our great alarm to-day. I
hope she has not suffered; as yet she does not appear the worse for her
exertions.
MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 16. 1828_.
Thank you, thank you for the roses; the yellow Scotch and Knight's dark
red, and the ever-blowing, came quite fresh, and just at the moment I
wanted them, when I had taken to my garden, after finishing my gutters.
Lady Hartland told me that the common people call the _rose des quatre
saisons_, the quarter session rose.
Have you read the _Recollections of Hyacinth O'Gara_? It is a little
sixpenny book; I venture to say you would like it; I wish I was reading
it to you. I am much pleased with Napier's _History of the Peninsular
War_. The Spanish character and all that influenced it, accidentally and
permanently, is admirably drawn. There is the evidence of truth in the
work. Heber is charming, but I haven't read him! People often say
"charming" of books they have not read; but I have read extracts in two
reviews, and have the pleasure of the book on the table before me.
I have not a scrap of news for you, except that an ass and a calf walked
over my flower-beds, and that I did not kill either of them. If the ass
had not provoked me to this degree, I was in imminent danger of growing
too fond of him, as I never could meet him drawing loads without
stopping to pat him, till clouds of dust rose from his thick hide. But
now, I will take no more notice of him--for a week!
_To_ MISS RUXTON
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1, 1829_.
Fanny Edgeworth is now Fanny Wilson; [Footnote: Frances Maria, eldest
daughter of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth, married Lestock P. Wilson, Esq.,
of London.] I can hardly believe it! She is gone! I feel it, and long
must feel it, with anguish, selfish anguish. But she will be happy--of
that I have the most firm, delightful conviction; and therefore all that
I cannot help now feeling is, I know, only _surface_ feeling, and will
soon pass away. The more I have seen and known of Lestock, the more I
like him and love him, and am convinced I shall always love him, whose
every word and look bears the stamp and value of sincerity.
Both their voices pronounced the words of the marriage vow with perfect
clearness and decision. Mr. Butler performed the ceremony with great
feeling and simplicity. I will tell my dearest aunt and you all the
little circumstances; at present they are all in confusion, great and
small, near and distant, and I am sick at heart in the midst of it all
with the shameful, weak, selfish, uppermost sorrow of parting with this
darling child.
_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.
BLOOMFIELD, _Jan. 19, 1829_.
An immense concourse of people, cavalcade and carriages innumerable,
passed by here to-day. We saw it, and you will see it all in the
newspapers. Banners with _Constitutional Agitation_ printed in black,
_M_obility and Nobility in black, crape hatbands, etc. Lord Anglesea's
two little sons riding between two officers, in the midst of the
hurricane mob, struck me most. One of the boys, a little midge, seemed
to stick on the horse by accident, or by mere dint of fearlessness: the
officer put his arm round him once, and set him up, the boy's head
looking another way, and the horse keeping on his way, through such
noise, and struggling, and waves multitudinous of mob.
There is an entertaining article in the _Quarterly Review_ on _The
Subaltern_. I do not like that on Madame de Genlis--coarse, and
over-doing the object by prejudice and virulence. The review of Scott's
Prefaces is ungrounded and confused--how different from his own writing!
But there is an article worth all the rest put together, on Scientific
Institutions, written in such a mild, really philosophical spirit, such
a pure, GREAT MAN'S desire to do good; I cannot but wish and hope it
might prove to be Captain Beaufort's. If you have not read it, never
rest till you do.
_To_ CAPTAIN BASIL HALL.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 12, 1829_.
... If I could, as you say, flatter myself that Sir Walter Scott was in
any degree influenced to write and publish his novels from seeing my
sketches of Irish character, I should indeed triumph in the "thought of
having been the proximate cause of such happiness to millions."
In what admirable taste Sir Walter Scott's introduction [Footnote: To
the new edition of _Waverley_.] is written! No man ever contrived to
speak so delightfully of himself, so as to gratify public curiosity, and
yet to avoid all appearance of egotism,--to let the public into his
mind, into all that is most interesting and most useful to posterity to
know of his history, and yet to avoid all improper, all impertinent, all
superfluous disclosures.
Children's questions are often simply _sublime_: the question your
three-years-old asked was of these--"Who sanded the seashore?"
_To_ MISS RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 29, 1829_.
I cannot forbear writing specially to you, as I know you will feel so
much about Captain Beaufort's appointment to the Hydrographership; I
wish poor William had been permitted the pleasure of hearing of it.
[Footnote: William Edgeworth had died of consumption on 7th May after a
two months' illness.] It would have given him pleasure even on his dying
bed, noble, generous creature as he was; he would have rejoiced for his
friend, and have felt that merit is sometimes rewarded in this world.
This appointment is, in every respect, all that Captain Beaufort wished
for himself, and all that his friends can desire for him. As one of the
first people in the Admiralty said, "Beaufort is the only man in England
fit for the place."
Very touching letters have come to us from people whom we scarcely knew,
whom William had attached so much; and many whom he had employed speak
of him as the kindest of masters, and as a benefactor whose memory will
be ever revered.
_To_ MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 27, 1829_.
I am now able, with the consent of all my dear guardians, to write with
my own hand to assure you that I am quite well.
I enjoyed the snatches I was able to have of Wordsworth's conversation,
and I think I had quite as much as was good for me. He has a good
philosophical bust, a long, thin, gaunt face, much wrinkled and
weatherbeaten: of the Curwen style of figure and face, but with a more
cheerful and benevolent expression.
While confined to my sofa and forbidden my pen, I have been reading a
good deal: 1st, _Cinq Mars_, a French novel, with which I think you
would be charmed, because I am; 2nd, _The Collegians_, in which there is
much genius and strong drawing of human nature, but not elegant:
terrible pictures of the passions, and horrible, breathless interest,
especially in the third volume, which never flags till the last huddled
twenty pages. My guardians turn their eyes reproachfully upon me. Mr.
William Hamilton has been with us since the day before Wordsworth came,
and we continue to like him.
_May 3, 1830_.
It is very happy for your little niece that you have so much the habit
of expressing to her your kind feelings; I really think that if my
thoughts and feelings were shut up completely within me, I should burst
in a week, like a steam-engine without a snifting-clack, now called by
the grander name of a safety-valve.
You want to know what I am doing and thinking of: of ditches, drains,
and sewers; of dragging quicks from one hedge and sticking them down
into another, at the imminent peril of their green lives; of two houses
to let, one tenant promised from the Isle of Man, and another from the
Irish Survey; of two bull-finches, each in his cage on the table--one
who would sing if he could, and the other who could sing, I am told, if
he would. Then I am thinking for three hours a day of _Helen_, to what
purpose I dare not say. At night we read Dr. Madden's _Travels to
Constantinople_ and elsewhere, in which there are most curious facts:
admirable letter about the plague; a new mode of treatment, curing
seventy-five in a hundred; and a family living in a mummy vault, and
selling mummies. You must read it.
My peony tree is the most beautiful thing on earth. Poor dear Lord Oriel
gave it me. His own is dead, and he is dead; but love for him lives in
me still.
Sir Stamford Raffles is one of the finest characters I ever read of, and
_did_ more than is almost credible. I have been amused with _The
Armenians_, [Footnote: A novel by Macfarlane.]--amused with its pictures
of Greek, Armenian, and Turkish life, and interested in its very
romantic story.
_July 19_.
If there should not be any insuperable objection to it on your part, I
will do myself the pleasure of being in your arms the first week in
August, that I may be some time with you before I take my departure for
England for the winter.
The people about us are now in great distress, having neither work nor
food; and we are going to buy meal to distribute at half-price. Meal was
twenty-three shillings a hundred, and potatoes sevenpence a stone, last
market-day at Granard. Three weeks longer must the people be supported
till new food comes from the earth.
* * * * *
This is the last letter Maria Edgeworth addressed to her aunt. She paid
her intended visit to her in August, but had left her before her last
illness began. Mrs. Ruxton died on the 1st of November, while Maria was
in London with her sister Fanny--Mrs. Lestock Wilson. The loss of her
aunt was the greatest Miss Edgeworth had sustained since the death of
her father. She had ever been the object of exceeding love, one with
whom every thought and feeling was shared, one of her greatest sources
of happiness.
* * * * *
MARIA _to_ MISS RUXTON.
69 WELBECK STREET, LONDON.
_Dec. 8, 1830_.
All my friends have been kind in writing to me accounts of you, my dear
Sophy. You and Margaret are quite right to spend the winter at Black
Castle; and the pain you must endure in breaking through all the old
associations and deep remembrances will, I trust, be repaid, both in the
sense of doing right and in the affection of numbers attached to you.
I spent a fortnight with Sneyd very happily, in spite of mobs and
incendiaries. Brandfold is a very pretty place, and to me a very
pleasant house. The library, the principal room, has a trellis along the
whole front, with 'spagnolette windows opening into it, and a pretty
conservatory at the end, with another glass door opening into it. The
views seen between the arches of the trellis beautiful; flower-knots in
the grass, with stocks, hydrangeas, and crimson and pale China roses in
profuse blow. Sneyd enjoys everything about him so much, it is quite
delightful to see him in his home. You have heard from Honora of the
sense and steadiness with which he resisted the mob at Goudhurst.
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