The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume I Part 13

_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 Inst.i.tute for leave for Lovell to travel as a _literate_ in Germany, and I have frequently written about him to our French friends; and those pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sed some time with us. My father, mother, and sister came also, and Maria read out _Ennui_ in ma.n.u.script. We used to a.s.semble 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, G.o.d 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 s.e.x, 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 pa.s.sing Mr. Dease's carriage--pa.s.sed it: attempted to pa.s.s 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 n.o.body else might, and that no one might steal the gla.s.ses. It came out safe and sound in the morning, not a gla.s.s 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 indeed 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.

We have been much entertained with _Le pet.i.t Carilloneur._ I would send it to you, only it is a society book; but I do send by a carman two volumes of Alfieri's _Life_ and Kirwan's _Essay on Happiness_, and the Drogheda edition of _Parent's a.s.sistant_, which, with your leave, I present to your servant Richard.

The Grinding Organ [Footnote: Afterwards published in 1827 in a small volume, ent.i.tled _Little Plays._] went off on Friday night better than I could have expected, and seemed to please the spectators. Mrs. Pakenham brought four children, and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson two sons, Mr. and Mrs.

Keating two daughters, which, with the Beauforts, Molly, George, and the rest of the servants, formed the whole audience. I am sure you would have enjoyed the pleasure the Bristows showed on seeing and hearing Mary Bristow perform her part, which she did with perfect propriety. Sophy and f.a.n.n.y were excellent, but as they were doomed to be the _good_ children, they had not ample room and verge enough to display powers equal to the little termagant heroine of the night. William in his Old Man (to use the newspaper style) was correct and natural. Mr. Edgeworth as the English Farmer evinced much knowledge of true English character and humour. Miss Edgeworth as the Widow Ross, "a cursed scold," was quite at home. It is to be regretted that the Widow Ross has no voice, as a song in character was of course expected; the Farmer certainly gave "a fair challenge to a fair lady." His Daniel Cooper was given in an excellent style, and was loudly encored.

_April 28._

The Primate [Footnote: William Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh, fifth son of the third Earl of Bute.] was very agreeable during the two days he spent here. My father travelled with him from Dublin to Ardbraccan, and this reputed silent man never ceased talking and telling entertaining anecdotes till the carriage stopped at the steps at Ardbraccan. This I could hardly credit till I myself heard his Grace burst forth in conversation. The truth of his character gives such value to everything he says, even to his humorous stories. He has two things in his character which I think seldom meet--a strong taste for humour, and strong feelings of indignation. In his eye you may often see alternately the secret laughing expression of humour, and the sudden open flash of indignation. He is a man of the warmest feelings, with the coldest exterior I ever saw--a master mind. I could not but be charmed with him, because I saw that he thoroughly appreciated my father.

_Tales of Fashionable Life_ were published in June 1809, and greatly added to the celebrity of their auth.o.r.ess. "Almeria" is the best, and full of admirable pictures of character. In all, the object is to depict the vapid and useless existence of those who live only for society.

Sometimes the moralising becomes tiresome. "Vraiment Miss Edgeworth est digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans votre triste utilite,"

said Madame de Stael to M. Dumont when she had read the Tales. In that age of romantic fiction an attempt to depict life as it really was took the reading world by surprise.

"As a writer of tales and novels," wrote Lord Dudley in the _Quarterly Review_, "Miss Edgeworth has a very marked peculiarity. It is that of venturing to dispense common sense to her readers, and to bring them within the precincts of real life and natural feeling. She presents them with no incredible adventures or inconceivable sentiments, no hyperbolical representations of uncommon characters, or monstrous exhibitions of exaggerated pa.s.sion. Without excluding love from her pages, she knows how to a.s.sign to it its just limits. She neither degrades the sentiment from its true dignity, nor lifts it to a burlesque elevation. It takes its proper place among the pa.s.sions. Her heroes and heroines, if such they may be called, are never miraculously good, nor detestably wicked. They are such men and women as we see and converse with every day of our lives, with the same proportional mixture in them of what is right and what is wrong, of what is great and what is little."

Lord Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_, said: "The writings of Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular an union of sober sense and inexhaustible invention, so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune, and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment, and of the illusions by which they are so often obstructed, that we should separate her from the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and speak of her Tales as works of more serious importance than much of the true history and solemn philosophy that comes daily under our inspection.... It is impossible, I think, to read ten pages in any of her writings without feeling, not only that the whole, but that every part of them, was intended to do good."

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 1809._

A copy of _Tales of Fashionable Life_ [Footnote: The first set containing "Ennui," "Madame de Fleury," "Almeria," "The Dun," and "Manoeuvring," in three volumes.] reached us yesterday in a Foster frank: they looked well enough,--not very good paper, but better than _Popular Tales._ I am going to write a story called "To-day," [Footnote: Never written.] as a match for "To-morrow," in which I mean to show that Impatience is as bad as Procrastination, and the desire to do too much to-day, and to enjoy too much at present, is as bad as putting off everything till to-morrow. What do you think of this plan? Write next post, as, while my father is away, I am going to write a story for his birthday. My other plan was to write a story in which young men of all the different professions should act a part, like the "Contrast" in higher life, [Footnote: "Patronage."] or the "Freeman Family," only without princes, and without any possible allusion to our own family. I have another sub-plan of writing "Coelebina in search of a Husband,"

without my father's knowing it, and without reading _Coelebs_, that I may neither imitate nor abuse it.

I daresay you can borrow Powell's _Sermons_ from Ardbraccan or Dr.

Beaufort; the Primate lent them to my father. There is a charge on the connection between merit and preferment, and one discourse on the influence of academical studies and a recluse life, which I particularly admire, and wish it had been quoted in _Professional Education._

Mr. Holland, a grand-nephew of Mr. Wedgwood's, and son to a surgeon at Knutsford, Cheshire, and intended for a physician, came here in the course of a pedestrian tour--spent two days--very well informed. Ask my mother when she goes to you to tell you all that Mr. Holland told us about Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Marcet, who is the author of _Conversations on Chemistry_--a charming woman, by his account.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Aug. 22, 1809._

I have just been reading Carleton's _Memoirs_, and am in love with the captain and with his general, Lord Peterborough; and I have also been reading one of the worst-written books in the language, but it has both instructed and entertained me--Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Johnson._ He has thrown a heap of rubbish of his own over poor Johnson, which would have smothered any less gigantic genius.

M. Dumont writes from Lord Henry Petty's: "Nous avons lu en societe a Bounds, _Tales of Fashionable Life._ Toute societe est un pet.i.t theatre.