Maria Edgeworth Part 10

She wrote to her brother about a little nephew:--

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 how you used to call 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.

She was devoted to children, and never happier than when surrounded by them. They in their turn loved the kind little old lady--for she was getting an old lady now--who played with them so merrily, who entered into all their fun, who told them such pretty stories, who plied them with pennies and all manner of good and pretty things. She never lost the power of speaking their language; her letters to children are among some of the most genial she wrote. She was pleased and gratified when the little ones liked her or her stories.

Visits to Mrs. Ruxton at Black Castle, to married brothers and sisters, or to friends, formed more and more frequent interludes in her home-life; but each time she returns, Miss Edgeworth records her excessive happiness to find herself at Edgeworthstown again, with her beloved stepmother and those who still were left.

After one such visit to Mrs. Ruxton, she writes to her:--

After spending four months with you, it is most delightful to me to receive from you such a.s.surances 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 a sofa and in an arm-chair, the mother and daughter and grandchild.

The outward course of existence at home was one of quiet routine. Habits of order had been early impressed upon Miss Edgeworth by Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, and though naturally impetuous, she had curbed herself to act with method. It was thanks to these acquired habits that she was able to accomplish daily such a surprising amount of multifarious work. It was her custom to get up at seven, take a cup of coffee, read her letters, and then walk out about three-quarters of an hour before breakfast. So punctual and regular was she that for many years a lady residing in the village used to be roused by her maid with the words, "Miss Edgeworth's walking, ma'am; it's eight o'clock." She generally returned with her hands full of roses or other flowers that she had gathered, and taking her needlework or knitting, would sit down at the family breakfast, a meal that was a special favorite of hers, though she rarely partook of anything. But while the others were eating she delighted to read out to them such extracts from the letters she had received as she thought would please them. She listened, too, while the newspaper was read aloud, although its literary and scientific contents always attracted her more than its political; for in politics, except Irish, she took little interest.

This social meal ended, she would sit down to write, penning letters, attending to business, or inditing stories if any such were in progress.

She almost always wrote in the common sitting-room, as she had done during her father's life-time, and for many years on a little desk he had made for her, and on which, shortly before his death, he had inscribed the words:--

On this humble desk were written all the numerous works of my daughter, Maria Edgeworth, in the common sitting-room of my family.

In these works, which were chiefly written to please me, she has never attacked the personal character of any human being, or interfered with the opinions of any sect or party, religious or political; while endeavoring to inform and instruct others, she improved and amused her own mind and gratified her heart, which I do believe is better than her head.

R. L. E.

After her father's death she used a writing-desk that had been his, and which accompanied her whenever she went away. At home it was placed on a table he had made, and to which she, inheriting some of his faculty for mechanical inventions, had attached some ingenious contrivances of her own, such as brackets, fire-screens and paper-rests. In summer time this little table was generally rolled into a recess behind the pillars of the library; in winter it stood near the fire. She wrote on folio sheets, which she sewed together in chapters, and her ma.n.u.scripts were wonderfully neat, clean and free from erasures. At luncheon-time she ceased writing, and since she made this her chief meal in the day, she was obliged, often most unwillingly, to forego her desire to return to her desk. But she knew that to write directly after eating was bad for her, and she submitted instead to doing some needlework. It was while working with her needle, however, that most of her stories were conceived and developed.

Sometimes she would drive out in the afternoon. She was rather nervous about horses, and always sat with her back to them, that she might not see them. When quite at ease on the score of coachman and steeds, she greatly enjoyed a drive in an open carriage, talking and laughing all the time, and amusing her companions with her endless flow of anecdotes and fun. With her habitual indifference to nature she rarely knew and still less cared whither the drive had been directed. Most commonly she wrote again till dinner-time. In her later years she would retire and sleep for an hour after this meal, rejoining the family circle at the tea-table. The evenings were usually spent in reading aloud; sometimes Miss Edgeworth was the reader, sometimes she would work and listen while others read. The enjoyment she felt in literature was imparted to those about her; she would manage to extract something, either knowledge or amus.e.m.e.nt, out of the dullest book. Her stepmother says that she would often linger after the usual bed-time, to talk over what she had heard, when bright, deep or solid observations would alternate with gay anecdotes apropos of the work or its author. For Miss Edgeworth's best talk was not reserved for abroad, but was rather poured forth at its best when surrounded by those she loved. That her conversation was at all times delightful there is abundant testimony. Mr. Ticknor says of it: "There was a life and spirit about her conversation, she threw herself into it with such _abandon_, she retorted with such brilliant repartee, and, in short, she talked with such extraordinary flow of natural talent, that I don't know whether anything of the kind could be finer."

It is said that even those who came to pay a mere morning call would often remain for hours, loth to terminate the conversation. Nor was her talk by any means uniformly grave; she knew most happily how to blend the grave and gay; she loved to laugh herself and arouse laughter in others, and when she laughed she did so with all the exuberant enjoyment of an Irishwoman. Indeed, there was far more of the light-hearted, merry Irishwoman in Miss Edgeworth than her writings, especially her moral tales, would lead the world to suppose. In her, Irish good qualities were mingled with practical wisdom, judgment and good sense, and produced a combination both rare and charming. She said of herself that she was ugly, remarking that she was the last ugly person left; the rest of the world were no longer anything but plain; but those who knew her did not subscribe to this verdict. She was not, and never had been, good-looking;[10] but a face that beamed such kindliness, reflected such intelligence, could never be really plain. In form she was _pet.i.te_; her well-made, almost elegant figure, that remained slight to the last, was enhanced by a scrupulously trim appearance. She was very neat and particular in her dress, and was not only always tidy, but well attired and in accordance with the fashion. She maintained throughout her life that a woman should not be above attending to her dress. Ostentation of any kind was foreign to her nature. When a relative died, leaving her a pair of valuable diamond ear-rings and pearl bracelets, her instant thought was, what good could she do with them? They were sold at once, and with the proceeds she built a village market-house and a room for the magistrate's petty sessions. Her generosity, both in giving money, time and labor for others, was boundless; and her kindnesses were made doubly kind by the thoughtfulness with which they were executed. Thus, for example, many of her tenants and neighbors had relations or friends who had emigrated to the United States. These poor people often found that letters they wrote to America miscarried, a frequent reason being of course insufficient or illegible addresses. To obviate this, Miss Edgeworth caused them to send her all their letters, which she then forwarded once a month. This labor often gave her no small trouble, but she grudged neither this nor the time spent in making up the monthly packet. Her poor neighbors, she deemed, repaid her only too richly by their grat.i.tude. She was certainly one of the few people who practice what they preach; she exemplified in her own person all those judicious plans and rules for helping the needy which she had brought forward in her works. When it is further remembered that Miss Edgeworth retained to the very last, until her eighty-second year, that faculty, which is judged the exclusive gift of youth, of admitting new interests into her life, and that she further made them to run side by side with those she had held of yore, in this mode enriching and widening her mental and emotional horizon, it is little wonder that her old age was one of serene felicity.

The marriage of f.a.n.n.y Edgeworth, Miss Edgeworth's favorite among all her younger sisters, was a real grief to her for the moment, though, with her usual unselfishness, she upbraided herself for feeling such a "shameful, weak, selfish sorrow at parting with this darling child." A pleasure of a very different kind came to her shortly after in the shape of Sir Walter Scott's introduction to his collected _Waverley Novels_.

The sheets, while pa.s.sing through the press, had been sent to her, and she felt that Scott had, in the most delightful and kind manner, said everything that could gratify her "as an author, friend and human creature."

You might well say that I should be "ill to please"--you might have said impossible to please--if what you sent me had not pleased, gratified, delighted me to the top of my bent; saturated me head and heart with the most grateful sense of the kindness of my most admired friend, and with the unspeakable gratification of such a testimony of his esteem and affection. I know full well, most sincerely I feel, that he over-values infinitely what I have written; but of this I am proud, because it proves to me that private friendship of his which I value above all, even his public praise....

Believe me, my dear sir, I feel it all; and if I could, as you say, flatter myself that Sir Walter Scott was in any degree influenced to write and publish this novel 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.

Among the many advanced movements that Mr. Edgeworth had advocated was the cause of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. In such public measures as her father had felt an interest, Miss Edgeworth felt one too; and it was a great joy to her that not only she, but her father's sister, had lived to see this measure carried. It is amusing to learn that it was a grievance of O'Connell's against Miss Edgeworth that she never directly espoused this cause by means of her pen. This was, in real fact, a compliment, as showing what a power her writings had become.

In the summer, the "reaper whose name is Death" reappeared amidst that united family, carrying off this time the able engineer, William Edgeworth, who also succ.u.mbed to the fatal family malady. It was a shock and a grief to his devoted sister, who sorrowed the more when she saw her juniors go before her, and the grief told on her own health. She was ailing until autumn, often confined to the sofa and forbidden her pen, though, happily for her, neither her needle nor her books. Her idle fancy began once more to weave romances, and she planned the story of _Helen_ and made some notes for it. Contrary to her previous custom, she did not draw up a complete sketch, as she had done while writing under her father's guidance. She jotted down the rough outlines, and trusted to spontaneous promptings to fill in the details. But she was not even certain at all whether she should attempt to write it; and although encouraged by the success of _Harry and Lucy_, she was nervous about grappling with higher work, deprived of the guide who had been her life-long stay.

For years she had rejected all suggestions to turn her attention once more to novel-writing, and but for the encouragement of her sister Harriet (Mrs. Butler), _Helen_ would probably never have seen the light.

It was first seriously thought of in 1830, but proceeded slowly. Life brought more interruptions to her than it had done in youth--family events, visits of kindness and pleasure, absorbed much time. Then, too, she was greatly engrossed by her agency business, to which all else was made to defer. She was punctual, we are told, not only to the day, but to the hour, of her payments; and her exertions to have the rents paid and the money ready for these payments were unvarying. She herself looked after the repairs, the letting of the village houses, the drains, gutters and pathways, the employment of the poor,--in short, all the hundred and one duties that devolve upon the steward of landed property.

It was considered by her family that all this exertion was in no wise too much for her; that, on the contrary, it was good for her health, inducing her to walk out and take more exercise than she would have done without an object in view. Even the very drudgery of accounts and letters of business, says her stepmother, "though at times almost too much for her bodily strength, invigorated her mind; and she went from the rent-book to her little desk and the ma.n.u.script of _Helen_ with renewed vigor. She never wrote fiction with more life and spirit than when she had been for some time completely occupied with the hard realities of life."

Nevertheless, _Helen_ progressed slowly, and was several times in danger of being thrust aside. She wrote to her sister:--

My dear Harriet, can you conceive yourself to be an old lamp at the point of extinction, and dreading the smell you would make at going out, and the execrations which in your dying flickerings you might hear? And then you can conceive the sudden starting up again of the flame when fresh oil is poured into the lamp. And can you conceive what that poor lamp would feel returning to light and life? So felt I when I had read your letter on reading what I sent to you of _Helen_. You have given me new life and spirit to go on with her. I would have gone on from principle, and the desire to do what my father advised--to finish whatever I began; but now I feel all the difference between working for a dead or a live horse.

To the day of her death Miss Edgeworth never became the prudent, staid, self-contained person we should imagine her from her books, did we possess them only as guides to her character. _Rosamond_ remained as generously impulsive as ever. On one occasion she writes to Mrs.

Ruxton:--

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, another from the Irish Survey; of two bullfinches, 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.

Before the year 1830 was ended Miss Edgeworth had lost this aunt, whom she had loved so long and fondly. It was the severing of a life-long friendship, the heaviest blow that had befallen her since her father's death. She was in London when the event took place, and it was some comfort to her to find herself so kindly welcomed by those whom she had liked best in years gone by. She says sadly:--

It is always gratifying to find old friends the same after long absence, but it has been particularly so to me now, when not only the leaves of the pleasures of life fall naturally in its winter, but when the great branches on whom happiness depended are gone.

During this visit she kept out of all large parties, but renewed many old ties. One of the things she enjoyed most was a children's party at Mrs. Lockhart's. She was in her element among the young ones. "If Mrs.

Lockhart had invented forever she could not have found what would please me more." This London visit extended over some months:--

Old as I am, and imaginative as I am thought to be, I have really always found that the pleasures I have expected would be great, have actually been greater in the enjoyment than in the antic.i.p.ation. This is written in my sixty-fourth year. The pleasure of being with f.a.n.n.y has been far, far greater than I had expected.

The pleasures here altogether, including the kindness of old friends and the civilities of acquaintances, are still more enhanced than I had calculated upon by the home and the quiet library and easy-chair morning retreat I enjoy.

On her return to Edgeworthstown she wrote:--

My last visit to universal London confirms to my own feelings your eulogium. I never was so happy there in my life, because I had, besides all the external pleasures, the solid satisfaction of a home there, and domestic pleasures, without which I should soon grow aweary of the world, and wish the business of the town were done. It is most gratifying to me, at such a distance, to hear and to believe that such kind and cultivated friends as you miss my company and wish for my future return. I should be very sorry if I were told this minute that I was never to see London again, and yet I am wondrous contented and happy at home.

It is a curious circ.u.mstance, but a fact of frequent observation, that large families are often more united than small ones. The Edgeworths were a case in point. They had that devoted affection, that blind belief in one another, that often distinguishes a clan. They preferred each other's society to that of strangers; they regarded themselves as beings apart; what one did, the others approved; harmony and good will reigned supreme. With so many different families living under one roof, it was a rare and curious fusion, this home party, of which one of the brothers said that "each star is worthy of separate observation for its serenity, brilliancy or magnitude; but it is as a constellation they claim most regard, linked together by strong attachment and moving in harmony through their useful course."

It was as a star of the first magnitude in this constellation that Miss Edgeworth loved to move and have her being, and she chose to be set there rather than shine in brilliancy alone. Miss Edgeworth, the woman, must always be thought of in connection with her home and home attachments. To love, shrouded in the quiet obscurity of domestic life, was the secret of existence to this simple-minded nature.

That _Helen_ was liked by the home circle was a real pleasure to its author. She was anxious for criticism and took all she received in good part. "I am a creature," she once said, "that can take advice, can be the better for it, and am never offended by it." The family approval given, the ma.n.u.script was despatched to London with more confidence than she had ever expected to feel again in a literary work. Lockhart managed the business arrangements, for to this she did not feel equal, and when asked if the book should be in two or three volumes, replied:--

I have satisfied my own conscience, which is my point, as I know that far from having stretched a single page, or a single sentence, to _make out_ a third volume, I have cut as much as ever I could--cut it to the quick; and now it matters not whether it be printed in three or in two volumes. If tiresome to the ear in three, it would be equally so in two, and would look worse to the eye.

The reason why her new story was not an Irish one she gives in a letter to a brother in India:--

I should tell you beforehand that there is no humor in it and no Irish character. It is impossible to draw Ireland as she now is in a book of fiction--realities are too strong, party pa.s.sions too violent to bear to see, or care to look at their faces in the looking-gla.s.s. The people would only break the gla.s.s and curse the fool who held the mirror up to nature--distorted nature, in a fever. We are in too perilous a case to laugh: humor would be out of season, worse than bad taste. Whenever the danger is pa.s.sed, as the man in the sonnet says, "We may look back on the hardest part and laugh." Then I shall be ready to join in the laugh. Sir Walter Scott once said to me, "Do explain to the public why Pat, who gets forward so well in other countries, is so miserable in his own." A very difficult question; I fear above my power. But I shall think of it continually, and listen, and look, and read.

Things were once more in a bad way in that unhappy country, and Miss Edgeworth saw great distress all around her. A letter written at that time might almost be written to-day:--

I fear we have much to go through in this country before we come to quiet, settled life, and a ready obedience to the laws. There is literally no rein of law at this moment to hold the Irish; and through the whole country there is what I cannot justly call a spirit of _reform_, but a spirit of _revolution_, under the name of reform; a restless desire to overthrow what _is_, and a hope--more than a hope--an expectation of gaining liberty or wealth, or both, in the struggle; and if they do gain either, they will lose both again and be worse off than ever--they will afterwards quarrel amongst themselves, destroy one another, and be again enslaved with heavier chains. I am and have been all my life a sincere friend to moderate measures, as long as reason can be heard; but there comes a time, at the actual commencement of uproar, when reason cannot be heard, and when the ultimate law of force must be resorted to, to prevent greater evils. _That time was lost in the beginning of the French Revolution_--I hope it may not be lost in Ireland. It is scarcely possible that this country can now be tranquilized without military force to reestablish law; the people _must_ be made to obey the laws or they cannot be ruled after any concessions. Nor would the mob be able to rule if they got all they desire; they would only tear each other to pieces, and die _drunk_ or famish _sober_. The misfortune of this country has been that England has always yielded to _clamor_ what should have been granted to justice.

As Miss Edgeworth advanced in life she often spoke of "my poor Ireland,"

showing that hopelessness with regard to the problem had dawned on her.

She was a patriot, but belonged to no party; and was blind neither to the nation's wrongs, follies nor crimes. She grew more and more to advocate the _laissez-faire_ system. She contended that her observations, which extended over so long a period of time, had shown her steady progression in Ireland, and she believed that the land would ultimately do well if people would only not force their political nostrums upon it. What she did demand from England was equality of legislation, but no more; and this accorded, she believed Ireland would rise from her state of degradation, though of necessity the rise would be slow, since the length of time of recovery must be in proportion to the length and force of the infliction. Mrs. Hall very rightly remarked that Miss Edgeworth's affection for Ireland was "philosophic." Yet another change Miss Edgeworth observed in the Irish, and one that made them less useful to her for literary purposes:--

The modern peasantry imagine they have a part to play in the organization of their country; their heads are fuller of politics than fun; in fact, they have been drilled into thinking about what they cannot understand, and so have become reserved and suspicious--that is, to what they used to be.

After _Helen_ had pa.s.sed through the press, Miss Edgeworth accompanied her friends Sir Culling and Lady Smith in a trip through Connemara. Of the adventures they had on this journey--real Irish adventures, with innumerable sloughs to traverse, with roads that imperilled life, with inns whose dirt and discomfort pa.s.sed belief, with roadside hospitality from kindly but eccentric gentlefolks--Miss Edgeworth wrote a letter some forty pages long to a brother in India. For fun and graphic vivacity it is not surpa.s.sed by the best of her printed Irish scenes.

After her return "rents and odious accounts" kept her mind from running too much upon _Helen_, about which she was more anxious than about any book she had ever sent into the world. It soon proved as great a success as her earlier works, and a second edition was demanded after a few weeks. Her own feelings about the matter are expressed in a letter she wrote to Mr. Bannatyne, who had congratulated her on its public reception:--

MY DEAR MR. BANNATYNE:

I thank you with all my heart for the "nervousness" you felt about my venturing again before the public, and it is a _heart_-felt as well as a _head_-felt satisfaction to me that you do not think I have lowered what my father took such pains to raise for me. You cannot conceive how much afraid I was myself to venture what had not his corrections and his sanction. For many, many years that feeling deterred me from any attempt in this line. Of what consequence, then, to my happiness it is to be a.s.sured, by friends on whose sincerity and judgment I can depend, that I have not done what I ought to repent or to be ashamed of.

Concerning _Helen_ contemporary public opinion was much divided; some regarded it as a falling-off in power, others as an advance, but all agreed that there was a change. The change is one of tone and feeling, induced in part, no doubt, by the fact that it was the emanation of her own brain only; in part that years had caused Miss Edgeworth, as it causes all of us, to regard life from a different standpoint. Experience had taught her to

Gentler scan her brother man