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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_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 17, 1842_.

It is now five o'clock, and Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall have not come. It is
Lestock's last day, and he and Fanny and Lucy are so busy and so happy
putting the transit instrument to rights, and setting black spotted and
yellow backed spinning spiders at work to spin for the meridian lines. I
have just succeeded in catching the right sort by descending to the
infernal regions, and setting kitchenmaid and housemaid at work. I was
glad Mr. and Mrs. Hall did not arrive just at the crisis of the
operation--all completed now.

Ask Mr. Butler if there is any subscription necessary or expected from
me, now that I have been so honourably made an honorary member of the
Royal Irish Academy? I would not for the world omit anything that ought
to be done now that I am M.R.I.A.

_July 8_.

I am going literally to beg my bread and lodging at your door on my way
to Dublin, and I do so _sans phrase_. I remember that, when I used to
write to offer myself to Aunt Ruxton, I regularly added, "You know, my
dear aunt, I can sleep in a drawer;" and she used to answer, "I know you
can, my dear, and you are welcome; but write a day beforehand, that I
may have the drawer ready."

_To_ MRS. FRANCIS BEAUFORT.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Oct. 27, 1842_.

Most kind and most judiciously kind Honora, you have written the very
thing I had been thinking as I lay awake last night, I would write to
you, but scrupled. I certainly will take your advice, and spend my
Christmas at home with Pakenham, although I cannot, nor do I wish to,
fill up his feeling of the blanks in this house. There is something
mournful, yet pleasingly painful, in the sense of the ideal presence of
the long-loved dead. Those images people and fill the mind with
unselfish thoughts, and with the salutary feeling of responsibility and
constant desire to be and to act in this world as the superior friend
would have wished and approved.

There is such difficulty this season for the poor tenants to make up
their rents; cattle, oats, butter, potatoes, all things have so sunk in
price. In these circumstances it is not only humane, but absolutely
necessary, that landlords should give more time than usual. Some cannot
pay till after certain fairs in the beginning of November--that I must
have stayed for, at all events. Indeed, they have shown so much
consideration for me, and striven so to make up the money that they
might not _detain_ me, that I should be a brute and a tyrant if I did
not do all I could on my part to accommodate them.

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 1842_.

Mrs. Hall has sent to me her last number, in which she gives
Edgeworthstown. All the world here are pleased with it, and so am I. I
like the way in which she has mentioned my father particularly. There is
an evident kindness of heart, and care to avoid everything that could
hurt any of our feelings, and at the same time a warmth of affectionate
feeling unaffectedly expressed, that we all like it, in spite of our
dislike to "that sort of thing."

* * * * *

Mrs. S.C. Hall's is perhaps the best picture extant of the family life
at Edgeworthstown. She says:

* * * * *

Our principal object, in Longford County, was to visit Edgeworthstown,
and to spend some time in the society of Miss Edgeworth. We entered the
neat, nice, and pretty town at evening; all around us bore--as we had
anticipated--the aspect of comfort, cheerfulness, good order,
prosperity, and their concomitant, contentment. There was no mistaking
the fact that we were in the neighbourhood of a resident Irish family,
with minds to devise, and hands to effect improvement everywhere within
reach of their control.

Edgeworthstown may almost be regarded as public property. From this
mansion has emanated so much practical good to Ireland, and not alone to
Ireland, but the civilised world.... The demesne is judiciously and
abundantly planted, and the dwelling-house of Edgeworthstown is large
and commodious. We drove up the avenue at evening. It was cheerful to
see the lights sparkle through the windows, and to feel the cold nose of
the house-dog thrust into our hands as an earnest of welcome; it was
pleasant to receive the warm greeting of Mrs. Edgeworth, and it was a
high privilege to meet Miss Edgeworth in the library, the very room in
which had been written the works that redeemed a character for Ireland,
and have so largely promoted the truest welfare of human-kind. We had
not seen her for some years--except for a few brief moments--and
rejoiced to find her in nothing changed; her voice as light and happy,
her laughter as full of gentle mirth, her eyes as bright and truthful,
and her countenance as expressive of goodness and loving-kindness, as
they have ever been.

Edgeworthstown was, and is, a large country mansion, to which additions
have been from time to time made, but made judiciously. An avenue of
venerable trees leads to it from the public road. It is distant about
seven miles from the town of Longford. The only room I need specially
refer to is the library; it belonged more peculiarly to Maria, although
the general sitting-room of the family. It was the room in which she did
nearly all her work; not only that which was to gratify and instruct the
world, but that which, in a measure, regulated the household--the
domestic duties that were subjects of her continual thought: for the
desk at which she usually sat was never without memoranda of matters
from which she might have pleaded a right to be held exempt. It is by no
means a stately, solitary room, but large, spacious, and lofty, well
stored with books, and furnished with suggestive engravings. Seen
through the window is the lawn, embellished by groups of trees. If you
look at the oblong table in the centre, you will see the rallying-point
of the family, who are usually around it, reading, writing, or working;
while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious that the inmates of the house shall
each do exactly as he or she pleases, sits in her own peculiar corner on
the sofa; a pen, given her by Sir Walter Scott while a guest at
Edgeworthstown (in 1825), is placed before her on a little, quaint,
unassuming table, constructed, and added to, for convenience. She had a
singular power of abstraction, apparently hearing all that was said, and
occasionally taking part in the conversation, while pursuing her own
occupation, and seemingly attending only to it. In that corner, and on
that table, she had written nearly all her works. Now and then she would
rise and leave the room, perhaps to procure a toy for one of the
children, to mount the ladder and bring down a book that could explain
or illustrate some topic on which some one was conversing; immediately
she would resume her pen, and continue to write as if the thought had
been unbroken for an instant. I expressed to Mrs. Edgeworth surprise at
this faculty, so opposed to my own habit. "Maria," she said, "was always
the same; her mind was so rightly balanced, everything so honestly
weighed, that she suffered no inconvenience from what would disturb and
distract an ordinary writer."

She was an early riser, and had much work done before breakfast. Every
morning during our stay at Edgeworthstown she had gathered a bouquet of
roses, which she placed beside my plate on the table, while she was
always careful to refresh the vase that stood in our chamber; and she
invariably examined my feet after a walk, to see that damp had not
induced danger; popping in and out of our room with some kind inquiry,
some thoughtful suggestion, or to show some object that she knew would
give pleasure. Maria Edgeworth never seemed weary of thought that could
make those about her happy.

A wet day was a "god-send" to us. She would enter our sitting-room and
converse freely of persons whose names are histories; and once she
brought us a large box full of letters--her correspondence with many
great men and women, extending over more than fifty years, authors,
artists, men of science, social reformers, statesmen, of all the
countries of Europe, and especially of America, a country of which she
spoke and wrote in terms of the highest respect and affection.

Although we had known Miss Edgeworth in London, it will be readily
understood how much more to advantage she was seen in her own house; she
was the very gentlest of lions, the most unexacting, apparently the
least conscious of her right to prominence. In London she did not
reject, yet she seemed averse to the homage accorded her. At home she
was emphatically at home!

In person she was very small--she was "lost in a crowd!" Her face was
pale and thin, her features irregular; they may have been considered
plain, even in youth, but her expression was so benevolent, her manners
were so perfectly well-bred, partaking of English dignity and Irish
frankness, that one never thought of her with reference either to beauty
or plainness. She ever occupied, without claiming attention, charming
continually by her singularly pleasant voice, while the earnestness and
truth that beamed from her bright blue--very blue--eyes increased the
value of every word she uttered. She knew how to _listen_ as well as to
_talk_, and gathered information in a manner highly complimentary to
those from whom she sought it; her attention seemed far more the effect
of respect than of curiosity. Her sentences were frequently
epigrammatic; she more than once suggested to me the story of the good
fairy from whose lips dropped diamonds and pearls whenever they were
opened. She was ever neat and particular in her dress, her feet and
hands were so delicate and small as to be almost childlike. In a word,
Maria Edgeworth was one of those women who do not seem to require
beauty.

Miss Edgeworth has been called "cold"; but those who have so deemed her
have never seen, as I have, the tears gather in her eyes at a tale of
suffering or sorrow, nor heard the genuine, hearty laugh that followed
the relation of a pleasant story. Never, so long as I live, can I forget
the evenings spent in her library in the midst of a family highly
educated and self-thinking, in conversation unrestrained, yet pregnant
with instructive thought.

* * * * *

In January 1843 Miss Edgeworth was dangerously ill with a fever.
Afterwards she wrote to a friend:

* * * * *

And, now that it is over, I thank God not only for my recovery, but for
my illness. In very truth, and without the least exaggeration or
affectation or sentiment, I declare that, on the whole, my illness was a
source of more pleasure than pain to me, and that I would willingly go
through all the fever and weakness to have the delight of the feelings
of warm affection, and the consequent unspeakable sensations of
gratitude. When I felt that it was more than probable that I should not
recover, with a pulse above a hundred and twenty, and at the entrance of
my seventy-sixth year, I was not alarmed. I felt ready to rise tranquil
from the banquet of life, where I had been a happy guest; I confidently
relied on the goodness of my Creator.

MARIA _to_ MISS MARGARET RUXTON _at_ HYERES.

TRIM, _March 20, 1843_.

Thank you, thank you, my dear Margaret, for all your anxiety about me.
[Footnote: In her severe illness during January.] I am strengthening. We
have no news or events; we live very happily here. On Friday last, being
St. Patrick's Day, there were great doings here, and not drunken doings,
not drowning the shamrock in whisky, but honouring the shamrock with
temperance rejoicings and music, that maketh the heart glad without
making the head giddy or raising the hand against law or
fellow-creatures. Leave was asked by the Temperance Band and company to
come into Mr. Butler's lawn to play a tune or two, as they were pleased
to express it, for Miss Edgeworth. The gates were thrown open, and in
came the band, a brass band, with glittering horns, etc., preceded by
Priest Halligan, whom you may recollect, in a blue and white scarf
floating graceful, and a standard flag in his hand. A numerous crowd of
men, women, and children came flocking after, kept in order by some
Temperance Society staff officers with blue ensigns.

I, an invalid, was not permitted to go out to welcome them, but I stood
at my own window, which I threw open, and thanked them as loud as I
could, and curtseyed as low as my littleness and my weakness would
allow, and was bowed to as low as saddle-bow by priests on horseback and
musicians and audience on foot: Harriet on the steps welcoming and
sympathising with these poor people; and delightful it was to see Mr.
Butler bareheaded shaking hands with the priest, who almost threw
himself from his horse to give him his hand.

Mr. Tuite, that dear good old gentleman, died a few days ago at Sonna,
in his ninety-seventh year; his good son, in his note to my mother
announcing the event, says, "It is a comfort to think that to the very
last he had all the comfort, spiritual and earthly, that he could need
or desire."

Miss Bremer, of Stockholm, has published a novel, translated by Mary
Howitt, which is one of the most interesting, new, and truly original
books I have seen this quarter-century. Its title does not do it
justice. _Our Neighbours_: which might lead you to expect a gossiping
book, or at best something like _Annals of my Parish--tout au
contraire_; it is sketches of family life, a romantic family, admirably
drawn--some characters perhaps a little overstrained, but in the
convulsions of the overstraining giving evidence of great strength--beg,
buy, or borrow it, if you can, and if not, envy us who have it.

Envy us, also, _La Vie du Grand Conde_, written in French, by Lord
Mahon, not published, only a hundred copies struck off, and he has
honoured me with a present of a copy. Of the style and correctness of
the French I am not so presumptuous as to pretend to be a competent
judge, but I can say that in reading it I quite forgot it was by an
Englishman, and never stopped to consider this or that expression, and I
wish, dear Margaret, that you had the satisfaction of reading this most
interesting, entertaining book.

Dickens's _America_ is a failure; never trouble yourself to read it;
nevertheless, though the book is good for little, it gives me the
conviction that the man is good for much more than I gave him credit
for; a real desire for the improvement of the lower classes, and this
reality of _feeling_ is, I take it, the secret, joined to his great
power of humour, of his ascendant popularity.

_To_ MISS BANNATYNE.

TRIM, _April 1843_.

I am eager, with my own hand, to assure you that I am quite recovered. I
have been so nursed and tended by all my friends that I really can think
of nothing but myself; nevertheless, I am sometimes able to think of
other things and persons. During my convalescence Harriet has read to me
many entertaining and interesting books: none to me so interesting, so
charming, as the Life and Letters of your countryman, that honour to
your country and to all Britain, and to human nature--Francis Horner: a
more noble, disinterested character could not be; in the midst of
temptations with such firm integrity, in the midst of party spirit as
much superior to its influence as mortal man could be! and if sympathy
with his friends, and the sense that public men must pull together to
effect any purpose may, as Lord Webb Seymour asserts, have swayed
Horner, or biased him a little from his original theoretic course, still
it never was from any selfish or in the slightest degree corrupt or
unworthy motive. I much admire Lord Webb Seymour's letter to Horner, and
not less Horner's candid, honest, and temperate answer. What friends he
made for himself of the best and most able of the land, not only admired
but trusted and consulted by them all, and not only trusted and
consulted, but beloved. This book really makes one think better of human
nature. Of all his friends I think more highly than I ever thought or
knew before I read his letters to them and theirs to him. There never
was such a unanimous tribute to integrity in a statesman as was paid to
Horner by the British Senate at his death: I remember it at the time,
and I am glad to see it recorded in this book. It will waken or keep
alive the spirit of public and private virtue in many a youthful mind. I
see with pleasure your father's name in the book, and the names and
characters of many of our dear Scotch friends. My head and heart are so
full of it that I really know not how to stop in speaking of it.

I am just going to write to Lady Lansdowne how much I was delighted by
seeing her and Lord Henry Petty, but especially herself, mentioned
exactly in the manner in which I thought of her and of him, when we
first became acquainted with them, which was just at the very time of
which Mr. Horner speaks. Lady Lansdowne gave me a drawing of Little
Bounds, which is now hanging up in our library unfaded. It is a
gratification to me to feel that I appreciated both her talents and her
character as Horner did, before all the world found out that she was a
SUPERIOR person.

My brother Pakenham was delighted with his tour in Scotland, and with
his renewal of personal intercourse with his dear Scotch friends: all
steady as Scotch friends ever are and kind and warm--the warmth once
raised in them never cooling--anthracite coal--layer after layer, hot to
the very inside kernel. Pakenham is now in London with my sisters Fanny
and Honora--Fanny has wonderfully recovered her health. She has several
Scotch friends in London, of whom she is very fond, from Joanna Baillie
to her young friends, Mrs. Andrews and her sisters. Mr. Andrews is a
very agreeable, sensible, conversable man; I saw something of him when I
was last in London, and hope to see more when I return there. If I
continue as well as I am now I intend, please God, to make my promised
visit to London some time this autumn, when the hurly-burly of the
fashionable season is over.

* * * * *

While at Trim, Maria received the announcement of her youngest sister
Lucy's engagement to Dr. Robinson, which gave her exquisite pleasure:
"never," as she wrote at the time, "never was a marriage hailed with
more family acclaim of universal joy." The marriage took place on June
8.

* * * * *

MARIA _to_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _August 1, 1843_.

I have just wakened and risen from the sofa rejoicing, like a dwarf, "to
run my course." I was put to sleep, not by magnetism, but by the
agreeable buzz of dear Pakenham's voice reading out a man's
peregrinations from Egypt to Australia--"the way was long, the road was
dark," and the reader declares I was asleep before we got to Egypt.

Mr. Maltby _is_ wondrous tall, and Pakenham has had the diversion
long-looked-for of seeing "Maltby hand Maria in to dinner." Mr. Maltby
is a very gentlemanlike man, every inch of him, many as they are, and
very conversable--really conversable, he both hears and talks, and
follows and leads.

_To_ MRS. BEAUFORT.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 14, 1843._ "_Choisissez, mon enfant, mais prenez
du veau." Choose, my dear Honora, whichever pattern you please, but take
this which I enclose. We have had a very pleasant visit to Newcastle,
where we met Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Gray, and I liked both very much. I
thought her perfectly unpretending and unaffected; slight figure, a
delicate woman, pretty dark hair and dark eyes, and pleasing expression
of countenance. I never should have suspected her of being so learned or
so laborious and persevering as she is.

* * * * *

In November 1843 Miss Edgeworth went to London, and spent the winter
with her sister Harriet, Mrs. Wilson.

* * * * *

MARIA _to_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Dec. 3, 1843_.

We dined at Dr. Lushington's last Thursday--the dinner was very merry
and good-humoured. Mr. Richardson was there, and delighted I was to see
him, and he talked so affectionately of Sir Walter and auld lang syne
times; and Mr. Bentham, the botanist, too, was there, Pakenham's friend,
a very agreeable man. After dinner too was to me very entertaining, for
I found that a lady, introduced to me as Mrs. Hawse, was daughter to
Brunel, and she told me all the truth of her brother and the half-guinea
in his throat, and the incision in his windpipe, and his coughing it up
at last, and Brodie seeing and snatching it from between his teeth, and
driving over all London to show it.

And now we are going to tea at Dr. Holland's.

_Monday morning._

That we had a very pleasant evening I need scarcely say, but to Boswell
Sydney Smith would out-Boswell Boswell. He talked of course of Ireland
and the Priests, and I gave good, and I trust true testimony to their
being, before they took to politics--excellent parish priests, and he
talked of Bishop Higgins and Repeal agitations, and I told him of "Don't
be anticipating," and laughing at brogue (how easy!) led him to tell me
of a conversation of his with Bishop Doyle in former days--beginning
with "My lord," propitiously and propitiatingly, "My lord, don't you
think it would be a good plan to have your clergy paid by the State?"

Bishop Doyle assured him it would never be accepted. "But, suppose every
one of your clergy found, L150 lodged in the bank for them, and at 5 per
cent for arrears?"

"Ah! Mr. Smith, you have a way of putting things!"

* * * * *

Sydney Smith, on his side, was enchanted with Maria Edgeworth--"Miss
Edgeworth was delightful, so clever and sensible. She does not say witty
things, but there is such a perfume of wit runs through all her
conversation as makes it very brilliant."

* * * * *

MISS EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

_Christmas Day._

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

With the addition which Lestock has just been telling to Waller--

With your pockets full of money and your cellars full of beer.

Yesterday, Sunday, your kind friends, the Andrews', took Waller with us
to the Temple church--it has been, you know, all new painted and dressed
since I saw it last, and the knights in dark bronze-coloured marble
repaired. The tiled floor is too new, not like Mr. Butler's most
respectable reverend old tiles. Mr. Andrews took us all over the church
after service, and in particular pointed out one old window of painted
glass, in which the bright red colour is so bright in such full
freshness as is inimitable in modern art.

We went from church to luncheon at Mrs. Andrews', and such a luncheon; I
refrain from a whole page which might be spent on it. Then Mrs. Andrews
took Waller and me a drive three times round the park, a most pleasant
drive in such a bright sunshiny day. So many happy little children under
the trees and on the pathways.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Jan. 1844_.

Thank you, and pray do you thank for me all the dear kind brothers,
sisters, nephews, and nieces, all round you, their centre and spring of
good, for all the pleasure they, on my seventy-seventh birthday, from
Barry's to dear little Mary's, all gave me--pleasure such as cannot be
bought for money. Who would not like to live to be old if they could be
so happy in friends as I am? I cannot help enclosing to you Lucy's and
Dr. Robinson's greeting, as you will feel with me the pleasure both gave
me.

Dumb Francis was here on that happy first of January and assured me on
his slate that he was very happy and grateful. I never see him without
my Francis's sonnet repeating itself, "The soul of honour," etc.

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Jan. 5, 1844_.

I have been reading and am reading Bentham's _Memoirs_; he could write
plain English before he invented his strange lingo, and the account of
his childhood and youth is exceedingly entertaining. Fanny reads to us
at night, much to Waller's interest and entertainment, Lieutenant Eyre's
account of that horrid Cabul expedition--what a disgrace to the British
arms and name in India. Mr. Pakenham and his nice wife came in while I
was writing this, and when I asked him if the prestige of British
superiority would be destroyed in India, he said, "No: we have redeemed
ourselves so nobly."

Waller is occupied every spare moment perfecting a Leyden phial, coated
and chained properly, and giving quite large and grand sparks and pretty
sharp shocks.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Jan. 1844_.

The day before yesterday Fanny and I walked to see Mrs. Napier, all in
black for Lady Clare--the suddenness of whose death, scarcely a moment's
interval between the bright flash of life and the dark silence of death,
was most striking and awful.

Yesterday we went to see dear Lady Elizabeth Whitbread, all as it used
to be, beautiful camellias, but she herself so sad--Miss Grant is dying.
Nothing can surpass her true tenderness to this faithful, gentle,
sincere old friend. All these illnesses and deaths are the more striking
I think in a bustling capital city, than they would be in the country
surrounded by one's family. There is something shocking in seeing the
bustling, struggling crowd who care nothing for one another dead or
alive: and they may say, so much the better, we are spared unavailing
thought and anguish, and yet I would rather have the thought and even
the anguish--for without pain there is no pleasure for the heart no
prayer for Indifference for me! Every _memento mori_ comes with some
force to me at seventy-seven, and I do pray most earnestly and devoutly
to God, as my father did before me, that my body may not survive my
mind, and that I may leave a tender not unpleasing recollection in their
hearts.

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