The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume II Part 27

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

TRIM, _Nov. 1, 1840_.

I am _perfect_, dearest mother, so no more about it, and thank you from my heart and every component part of my precious self for all the care and successful care you have taken of me, your old petted nursling.

Thank you and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l for the potted meat luncheon, and Mr. Tuite for his grapes,--Mary Anne and Charlotte had some. I was less tired than I could have expected when I reached Trim, and there was Mr. Butler on the steps ready to welcome us, and candles and firelight in the drawing-room so cheerful. I slept like a sleeping top. Harriet read out _Ferdinand and Isabella_, which, with all its chivalresque interest, I do like very much. I am sure Rosa's [Footnote: Mrs. Francis Edgeworth.]

Spanish interest in the book will grow by that it feeds upon, and I am very glad that she who has such fresh genuine pleasure in literature should have this book, which is so beautifully written, because it is so well felt by the author. Poor kind man. I will write to Mr. Ticknor as soon as I come to Finis.

The birds got home well; but travelling, Harriet tells me, does not agree with them, because they cannot stick upon their perch, and it is a perpetual struggle between cling and jolt.

_Nov. 10_.

I enclose a note of Miss Crampton's and two notes of Lady Normanby's. I never read more unaffected, affectionate, wife-like letters. How gratifying they must be to Crampton, and it raises one's opinion of Lord Normanby himself to find he can so attach a woman and a wife.

The _History of a Flirt_, which Harriet is reading to me, is rather entertaining but not interesting--a new and ingenious idea of a flirt, who is not looking for establishment or match-making, and therefore her disinterestedness charms all the lords and gentlemen who have been used to match-making mothers and young-lady-hunters for t.i.tles, and under favour of this disinterestedness her insolence and faithlessness is pa.s.sed over, while all the time she is in love with a captain with "soft Venetian eyes," as Mrs. Thrale used to say of Piozzi.

_Nov. 16_.

The ear-comforter or earwig is beautiful and comfortable, and is, I hear, as becoming to me as was the Chancellor's wig to Francis Forbes when he acted _Of Age To-morrow_. I am acting of age to-day, and very gay, and perhaps may arrive at years of discretion at eighty, if I live so long. I certainly wish to live till next month that I may see you all at home again. You know the cla.s.sic distich, which my father pointed out and translated for me, which was over the entrance door of the Cross Keys inn, near Beighterton:

If you are told you will die to-morrow you smile: If you are told you will die a month hence you will sigh.

I do not know where this may be in a book, but I know it is in human nature.

_To_ MR. TICKNOR.

TRIM, _Nov. 19, 1840_.

... I am afraid to invite you to come and see us again, lest you should be disenchanted, and we should lose the delightful gratification we enjoy in your glamour of friendship. Aunt Mary, however, is really all you think and saw her; and in her good years still a proof, as you describe her--and a remarkable proof--of the power of mind over time, suffering, and infirmities, and an example of Christian virtues, making old age lovely and interesting.

Your prayer, that she might have health and strength to enjoy the gathering of friends round her has been granted. Honora and her husband, and f.a.n.n.y and her husband, have been with us all this summer for months; and we have enjoyed ourselves as much as your kind heart could wish.

Especially "that beautiful specimen of a highly cultivated gentlewoman,"

as you so well called Mrs. Edgeworth, has been blest with the sight of all her children round her, all her living daughters and their husbands, and her grandchildren. Francis will settle at home, and be a good country gentleman and his own agent, to Mrs. Edgeworth's and all our inexpressible comfort and support, also for the good of the county, as a resident landlord and magistrate _much_ needed. As _he_ is at home I can be spared from the rent-receiving business, etc., and leaving him with his mother, Aunt Mary, and Lucy, I can indulge myself by accepting an often-urged invitation from my two sisters, f.a.n.n.y and Honora, to spend some months with them in London. I have chosen to go at this quiet time of year, as I particularly wish not to encounter the bustle and dissipation and lionising of London. For though I am such a minnikin lion now, and so old, literally without teeth or claws, still there be, that might rattle at the grate to make me get up and come out, and stand up to play tricks for them, and this I am not able or inclined to do. I am afraid I should growl; I never could be as good-natured as Sir Walter Scott used to be, when rattled for and made to "come out and stand on his hind legs," as he used to describe it, and then go quietly to sleep again.

I shall use my privilege of seventy-two--rising seventy-three--and shall keep in my comfortable den; I will not go out. "n.o.body asked you, ma'am," to play lion, may perhaps be said or sung to me, and I shall not be sorry nor mortified by not being asked to exhibit, but heartily happy to be with my sisters and their family and family friends--_all_ for which I go--knowing my own mind very well I speak the plain truth. I shall return to Edgeworthstown before the London _season_, as it is called, commences, i.e. by the end of March, or at the very beginning of April.

This is all I have, for the present, to tell you of my dear self, or of our family doings or plannings.

... I do not know whether I was most interested, dear Mrs. Ticknor, in your picture of your domestic life and happy house and home, or in the view you gave me of your public festivity and celebration of your American day of days--your national festival in honour of your Declaration of Independence. It was never, I suppose, more joyously, innocently, and advantageously held than on the day you describe so delightfully with the accuracy of an eye-witness. I think I too have seen all this, and thank you for showing it to me. It is a picture that will never leave the memory of my heart. I only wish that we could ever hope to have in Ireland any occasion or possibility of such happy and peaceable meetings, with united sympathy and for the keeping alive a feeling of national patriotism. No such point of union can be found, alas! in Ireland; no subject upon which sects and parties could coalesce for an hour, or join in rejoicing or feeling for their country! Father Matthews, one might have hoped, considering the good he has effected for all Ireland, and considering his own unimpeachable character and his great liberality, admitting all sects and all parties to take his pledge and share his benevolent efforts, _might_ have formed a central point round which all might gather. But no such hope! for I am just now a.s.sured his very Christian charity and liberality are complained of by his Catholic brethren, priests and laity, who now begin to abuse him for giving the pledge to _Protestants_, and say, "What good our fastings, our temperance, our being of the true faith, if Father Matthews treat _heretics all as one_, as Catholics themselves! and would have them saved in this world and the next too! Then I would not doubt but at the last he'd _turn tail_! aye, turn Protestant himself _entirely_."

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Dec. 26_.

While Francis is _pro_-ing and con-ing with f.a.n.n.y about alterations in his house at Clewer, I may go on with my scribbling, and tell you that Honora luncheoned here, and then off we went to Mrs. Debrizey's, Mrs.

Darwin's, Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgewood, Mrs. Guillemard, and Mrs. Marcet--at Mrs. Edward Romilly's.

Mrs. Darwin is the youngest daughter of Jos. Wedgewood, and is worthy of both father and mother; affectionate, and unaffected, and--young as she is, full of old times, she has her mother's radiantly cheerful countenance, even now, debarred from all London gaieties and all gaiety but that of her own mind by close attendance on her sick husband.

Mrs. Marcet was ill in bed, but Mr. and Mrs. Edward Romilly were pleasing and willing to be pleased, and he talked over his father's _Memoirs_ candidly and sensibly, and like a good son and a man of sense.

"I had like to have forgotten "--strange expression! can Mr. Butler explain it? _I had like to have_ forgotten and must tell Aunt Mary about Mrs. Lister calling.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

_January 2, 1841_.

Thank you for your birthday good wishes. How many birthdays have brought me the same never-failing kindness.

A very pleasant meeting we had yesterday at your brother's. [Footnote: Recently married to Honora Edgeworth.] Honora, dear Honora, was so nice and kind, n.o.body but ourselves. At second course appeared the essential trifle, [Footnote: A trifle always appeared on Maria Edgeworth's birthday, because once on New Year's Day when a trifle had been ordered and the dish was placed on the table there was found under the flowers, not cake and cream, but a little story Maria had written, "A Trifle."

The young folk had a real trifle afterwards.] and, trifle as it was, it was quite delightful to me with Honora's smile.

Did you ever taste figs stuffed with almonds? I hope you never may taste them! very bad, I a.s.sure you, but how the almonds got in puzzled me; all tight and closed as the outer skin looks without ridge or joining.

Did you ever taste Imperial Tokay? Your brother gave me some of the best ever tasted, I am told; and what do you think I said?

"Why, this cannot be Tokay!"

"Did you ever taste Tokay before?" said he.

"O yes, very often; but this is not Tokay."

"Be pleased to tell us what it is then," quoth Lestock.

"I don't know; but not Tokay, or a different sort from what I ever tasted, for that was sour and always drunk in green gla.s.ses."

Suddenly I recollected that I meant _Hock_!

Do you recollect the history of the Irishman, who declared that he had seen anchovies growing on the walls at Gibraltar? Challenged a gentleman for doubting him, met, and fired, and hit his man, and when the man who was. .h.i.t, sprang up as he received the shot, and the second observed--"How he capers!"

"By the powers! It was capers I meant 'stead of anchovies."

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Jan. 10, 1841_.

_a propos du pluie, a propos du beau temps_--I think of you and ten thousand times a week. ("I hate exaggeration.") I wish for you when I am in want of some unremembered or _disremembered_ name. I do love that Irish verb disremember, and I conjugate it daily from the infinitive to the preterpluperfect. Last week I preterpluperfectly disremembered when talking to Morris of Fortunio's gifted men, whether the legs of him who outrunneth the hare were tied with green or red? Parties run high for green and for red--please to settle the question.

f.a.n.n.y has been reading to me Darwin's _Voyage_; delightful it is.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Jan. 13, 1841_.