Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  I bear all with my accustomed passiveness, and am rewarded by my father’s having bought it for me; and it is now at Archer’s for you. Observe, I think the poem, as a drama, tiresome in the extreme, and absurd, but I wish you to see that the very letters from the man in the quick-silver mine which you recommended to me have been seized upon by a poet of no inferior genius. Some of the strophes of the fairies are most beautifully poetic.

  Lady Elizabeth Pakenham told us that when Lady Wellesley was presented to the Queen, Her Majesty said, “I am happy to see you at my court, so bright an example of constancy. If anybody in this world deserves to be happy, you do.” Then Her Majesty inquired, “But did you really never write one letter to Sir Arthur Wellesley during his long absence?”—”No, never, madam.”—”And did you never think of him? “—”Yes, madam, very often.”

  I am glad constancy is approved of at courts, and hope “the bright example” may be followed.

  To MISS SOPHY RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 12, 1806.

  This is the third sheet of paper in the smallest hand I could write I have had the honour within these three days to spoil in your service, stuffed full of geological and chemical facts, which we learned from our two philosophical travellers, Davy and Greenough; but when finished I persuaded myself they were not worth sending. Many of the facts I find you have in Thomson and Nicholson, which, “owing to my ignorance,” as poor Sir Hugh Tyrold would say, “I did not rightly know.”

  Our travellers have just left us, and my head is in great danger of bursting from the multifarious treasures that have been stowed and crammed into it in the course of one week. Mr. Davy is wonderfully improved since you saw him at Bristol: he has an amazing fund of knowledge upon all subjects, and a great deal of genius. Mr. Greenough has not, at first sight, a very intelligent countenance, yet he is very intelligent, and has a good deal of literature and anecdote, foreign and domestic, and a taste for wit and humour. He has travelled a great deal, and relates well. Dr. Beddoes is much better, but my father does not think his health safe. I am very well, but shamefully idle: indeed, I have done nothing but hear; and if I had had a dozen pair extraordinary of ears, and as many heads, I do not think I could have heard or held all that was said.

  To MISS RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Feb. 1807.

  While Charlotte [Footnote: Charlotte Edgeworth, the idol and beauty of the family, died, after a long illness, 7th April 1807.] was pretty well we paid our long-promised visit to Coolure, and passed a few very pleasant days there. Admiral Pakenham is very entertaining, and appears very amiable in the midst of his children, who doat on him. He spoke very handsomely of your darling brother, and diverted us by the mode in which he congratulated Richard on his marriage: “I give you joy, my good friend, and I am impatient to see the woman who has made an honest man of you.”

  Colonel Edward Pakenham burned his instep by falling asleep before the fire, out of which a turf fell on his foot, and so he was, luckily for us, detained a few days longer and dined and breakfasted at Coolure. He is very agreeable, and unaffected, and modest, after all the flattery he has met with. [Footnote: Colonel, afterwards Sir Edward Pakenham, distinguished in the Peninsular War, fell in action at New Orleans, 8th January 1815.]

  To MRS. RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Sept. 1807.

  My beloved aunt and friend — friend to my least fancies as well as to my largest interests, — thank you for the six fine rose-trees, and thank you for the little darling double-flowering almond tree. Sneyd asked if there was nothing for him? so I very generously gave him the polyanthuses and planted them with my own hands at the corners of his garden pincushions.

  Mr. Hammond may satisfy himself as to the union of commerce and literature by simply reading the history of the Medici, where commerce, literature, and the arts made one of the most splendid, useful, and powerful coalitions that ever were seen in modern times. Here is a fine sentence! Mr. Hammond once, when piqued by my raillery, declared that he never in his life saw, or could have conceived, till he saw me, that a philosopher could laugh so much and so heartily.

  Enclosed I send a copy of an epitaph written by Louis XVIII., on the Abbé Edgeworth; I am sure the intention does honour to H.M. heart, and the critics here say the Latin does honour to H.M. head. William Beaufort, who sent it to my father, says the epitaph was communicated to him by a physician at Cork, who being a Roman Catholic of learning and foreign education, maintains a considerable correspondence in foreign countries.

  To HENRY EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON. PAKENHAM HALL, Christmas Day, 1807.

  A Merry Christmas to you, my dear Henry and Sneyd! I wish you were here at this instant, and you would be sure of one; for this is really the most agreeable family and the pleasantest and most comfortable castle I ever was in.

  We came here yesterday — the we being Mr. and Mrs. Edgeworth, Honora, and me. A few minutes after we came, arrived Hercules Pakenham — the first time he had met his family since his return from Copenhagen. My father has scarcely ever quitted his elbow since he came, and has been all ear and no tongue.

  Lady Wellesley was prevented by engagements from joining this party at Pakenham Hall; both the Duke and Duchess of Richmond are so fond of her as no tongue can tell. The Duke must have a real friendship for Sir Arthur; for while he was at Copenhagen his Grace did all the business of his office for him.

  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 in
deed 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.