Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  And most eloquently, most beautifully did he tell the story. No mortal could ever have guessed that he was an invalid, if they had only heard him speak. Just as I had here stopped writing my father came out of his room, looking wretchedly, but ordered the carriage, and said he would go to Longford to see Mr. Fallon about materials for William’s bridge. He took with him his three sons, and “Maria to read Ormond” — great delight to me. He was much pleased, and this wonderful father of mine drove all the way to Longford: forced our way through the tumult of the most crowded market I ever saw — his voice heard clear all the way down the street — stayed half an hour in the carriage on the bridge talking to Mr. Fallon; and we were not home till half-past six. He could not dine with us, but after dinner he sent for us all into the library. He sat in the arm-chair by the fire; my mother in the opposite arm-chair, Pakenham in the chair behind her, Francis on a stool at her feet, Maria beside them; William next, Lucy, Sneyd; on the sofa opposite the fire, as when you were here, Honora, Fanny, Harriet, and Sophy; my aunts next to my father, and Lovell between them and the sofa. He was much pleased at Lovell and Sneyd’s coming down for this day.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Edgeworth died on the 13th of June, in his seventy-second year. He had been — by his different wives — the father of twenty-two children, of whom thirteen survived him. The only son of his second marriage, Lovell Edgeworth, succeeded to Edgeworthstown, but persuaded his stepmother and his numerous brothers and sisters still to regard it as a home.

  To enable the reader to understand the relationships of the large family circle, it may be well to give the children of Mr. Edgeworth.

  1st marriage with Anna Maria Elers.

  Richard, b. 1765; d. s.p. 1796.

  Maria, b. 1767; d. unmarried, 1849.

  Emmeline married, 1802, John King, Esq.

  Anna, married, 1794, Dr. Beddoes.

  2nd marriage with Honora Sneyd.

  Lovell, b. 1776; d. unmarried, 1841.

  Honora, d. unmarried, 1790.

  3rd marriage with Elizabeth Sneyd.

  Henry, b. 1782; d. unmarried, 1813.

  Charles Sneyd, b. 1786; d .s.p. 1864.

  William, b. 1788; d. 1792.

  Thomas Day, b. 1789; d. 1792.

  William, b. 1794; d. s.p. 1829.

  Elizabeth, d. 1800.

  Caroline, d. 1807.

  Sophia, d. 1785.

  Honora, married, 1831, Admiral Sir J. Beaufort, and died,

  his widow, 1858.

  4th marriage with Frances Anna Beaufort.

  Francis Beaufort, b. 1809; married, 1831, Rosa Florentina Eroles,

  and had four sons and a daughter. The second son, Antonio Eroles,

  eventually succeeded his uncle Sneyd at Edgeworthstown.

  Michael Pakenham, b. 1812; married, 1846, Christina Macpherson,

  and had issue.

  Frances Maria (Fanny), married, 1829, Lestock P. Wilson, Esq.,

  and died, 1848.

  Harriet, married, 1826, Rev. Richard Butler, afterwards Dean of

  Clonmacnoise.

  Sophia, married, 1824, Barry Fox, Esq. and d. 1837.

  Lucy Jane, married, 1843, Rev. T.R. Robinson, D.D.

  During the months which succeeded her father’s death, Maria wrote scarcely any letters; her sight caused great anxiety. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the cutting of a knife. She had overworked them all the previous winter, sitting up at night and struggling with her grief as she wrote Ormond; and she was now unable to use them without pain.

  In October she went to Black Castle, and remained there till January 1818, having the strength of mind to abstain almost entirely from reading and writing.

  It required all Maria Edgeworth’s inherited activity of mind, and all her acquired command over herself, to keep up the spirits of her family on their return to Edgeworthstown: from which the master-mind was gone, and where the light was quenched. But, notwithstanding all the depression she felt, she set to work immediately at what she now felt to be her first duty — the fulfilment of her father’s wish that she should complete the Memoirs of his life, which he had himself begun. Yet her eyes were still so weak that she seldom allowed herself what had been her greatest relaxation — writing letters to her friends.

  * * * * *

  MARIA to MRS. RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Jan. 24, 1818.

  My dearest aunt and friend — friend of my youth and age, and beloved sister of my father, how many titles you have to my affection and gratitude, and how delightful it is to me to feel them all! Since I have parted from you, I have felt still more than when I was with you the peculiar value to me of your sympathy and kindness. I find my spirits sink beyond my utmost effort to support them when I leave you, and they rise involuntarily when I am near you, and recall the dear trains of old associations, and the multitude of ideas I used to have with him who is gone for ever. Thank you, my dear aunt, for your most kind and touching letter. You have been for three months daily and hourly soothing, and indulging, and nursing me body and mind, and making me forget the sense of pain which I could not have felt suspended in any society but yours. My uncle’s opinion and hints about the Life I have been working at this whole week. Nothing can be kinder than Lovell is to all of us.

  I have read two-thirds of Bishop Watson’s life. I think he bristles his independence too much upon every occasion, and praises himself too much for it, and above all complains too much of the want of preferment and neglect of him by the Court. I have Madame de Staël’s Memoirs of her father’s private life: I have only read fifty pages of it — too much of a French Éloge — too little of his private life. There is a Notice by Benjamin Constant of Madame de Staël’s life prefixed to this work, which appears to me more interesting and pathetic than anything Madame de Staël has yet said of her father.

  February 21.

  I must and will write to my Aunt Ruxton to-day, if the whole College of Physicians, and the whole conclave of cardinal virtues, with Prudence primming up her mouth at the head of them, stood before me. I entirely agree with you, my dearest aunt, on one subject, as indeed I generally do on most subjects, but particularly about Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The behaviour of the General in Northanger Abbey, packing off the young lady without a servant or the common civilities which any bear of a man, not to say gentleman, would have shown, is quite outrageously out of drawing and out of nature. Persuasion — excepting the tangled, useless histories of the family in the first fifty pages — appears to me, especially in all that relates to poor Anne and her lover, to be exceedingly interesting and natural. The love and the lover admirably well drawn: don’t you see Captain Wentworth, or rather don’t you in her place feel him taking the boisterous child off her back as she kneels by the sick boy on the sofa? And is not the first meeting after their long separation admirably well done? And the overheard conversation about the nut? But I must stop: we have got no farther than the disaster of Miss Musgrave’s jumping off the steps.

  I am going on, but very slowly, and not to my satisfaction with my work.

  To MRS. SNEYD EDGEWORTH. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 27.

  I agree with you in thinking the MS. de Sainte-Helene a magnificent performance. My father was strongly of opinion that it was not written by Buonaparte himself, and he grounded this opinion chiefly upon the passages relative to the Duc d’Enghien: c’était plus qu’un crime, c’était une faute; no man, he thought, not even Nero, would, in writing for posterity say that he had committed a crime instead of a fault. But it may be observed that in the Buonaparte system of morality which runs through the book, nothing is considered what we call a crime, unless it be what he allows to be a fault. His proof that he did not murder Pichegru is, that it would have been useless. Le cachet de Buonaparte is as difficult to imitate as le cachet de Voltaire. I know of but three people in Europe who could have written it: Madame de Staël, Talleyrand, or M. Dumont. Madame de Staël, though she has the ability, could not have got so plainly and shortly throug
h it. Talleyrand has l’esprit comme un démon, but he could not for the soul of him have refused himself a little more wit and wickedness. Dumont has not enough audacity of mind.

  To MRS. STARK. [Footnote: Daughter of Mr. Bannatyne, of Glasgow.] SPRING FARM, N.T. MOUNT KENNEDY, June 1818.

  I am, and have been ever since I could any way command my attention, intent upon finishing those Memoirs of himself which my father left me to finish and charged me to publish. Yet I have accepted an invitation to Bowood, from Lady Lansdowne, whom I love, and as soon as I have finished I shall go there. As to Scotland, I have no chance of getting there at present, but if ever I go there, depend upon it, I shall go to see you. Never, never can I forget those happy days we spent with you, and the warmhearted kindness we received from you and yours: those were “sunny spots” in my life.

  To MRS. EDGEWORTH. BOWOOD, Sept. 1818.

  I will tell you how we pass our day. At seven I get up — this morning at half-past six, to have the pleasure of writing to you, my dearest mother, be satisfied I never write a word at night: breakfast is at half after nine, very pleasant: afterwards we all stray into the library for a few minutes, and settle when we shall meet again for walking, etc.: then Lady Lansdowne goes to her dear dressing-room and dear children, Dumont to his attic, Lord Lansdowne to his out-of-door works, and we to our elegant dressing-room, and Miss Carnegy to hers. Between one and two is luncheon: happy time! Lady Lansdowne is so cheerful, polite, and easy, just as she was in her walks at Edgeworthstown: but very different walks are the walks we take here, most various and delightful, from dressed shrubbery and park walks to fields with inviting paths, wide downs, shady winding lanes, and happy cottages — not dressed, but naturally well placed, and with evidence in every part of their being suited to the inhabitants.

  After our walk we dress and make haste for dinner. Dinner is always pleasant, because Lord and Lady Lansdowne converse so agreeably — Dumont also — towards the dessert. After dinner, we find the children in the drawing-room: I like them better and better the more I see of them. When there is company there is a whist table for the gentlemen. Dumont read out one evening one of Corneille’s plays, “Le Florentin,” which is beautiful, and was beautifully read. We asked for one of Molière, but he said to Lord Lansdowne that it was impossible to read Molière aloud without a quicker eye than he had pour de certains propos: however, they went to the library and brought out at last as odd a choice as could well be made, with Mr. Thomas Grenville as auditor, “Le vieux Célibataire,” an excellent play, interesting and lively throughout, and the old bachelor himself a charming character. Dumont read it as well as Tessier could have read it; but there were things which seemed as if they were written on purpose for the Célibataire who was listening, and the Célibataire who was reading.

  Lord Lansdowne, when I asked him to describe Rocca [Footnote: Second husband of Madame de Staël.] to me, said he heard him give an answer to Lord Byron which marked the indignant frankness of his mind. Lord Byron at Coppet had been going on abusing the stupidity of the good people of Geneva: Rocca at last turned short upon him—”Eh! milord, pourquoi donc venez-vous vous fourrer parmi ces honnêtes gens?”

  Madame de Staël — I jumble anecdotes together as I recollect them — Madame de Staël had a great wish to see Mr. Bowles, the poet, or as Lord Byron calls him, the sonneteer; she admired his sonnets, and his Spirit of Maritime Discovery, and ranked him high as an English genius. In riding to Bowood he fell, and sprained his shoulder, but still came on. Lord Lansdowne alluded to this in presenting him to Madame de Staël before dinner in the midst of the listening circle. She began to compliment him and herself upon the exertion he had made to come and see her: “O ma’am, say no more, for I would have done a great deal more to see so great a curiosity!”

  Lord Lansdowne says it is impossible to describe the shock in Madame de Staël’s face — the breathless astonishment and the total change produced in her opinion of the man. She afterwards said to Lord Lansdowne, who had told her he was a simple country clergyman, “Je vois bien que ce n’est qu’un simple curé qui n’a pas le sens commun, quoique grand poète.”

  Lady Lansdowne, just as I was writing this, came to my room and paid me half an hour’s visit. She brought back my father’s MS., which I had lent to her to read: she was exceedingly interested in it: she says, “It is not only entertaining but interesting, as showing how such a character was formed.”

  To MISS RUXTON. BOWOOD, Sept. 19, 1818.

  You know our history up to Saturday last, when Lord and Lady Grenville left Bowood: there remained Mr. Thomas Grenville, Le vieux Célibataire, two Horts, Sir William and his brother, Mr. Gally Knight, and Lord and Lady Bathurst, with their two daughters. Mr. Grenville left us yesterday, and the rest go to-day. Mr. Grenville was very agreeable: dry, quiet humour: grave face, dark, thin, and gentlemanlike: a lie-by manner, entertained, or entertaining by turns. It is curious that we have seen within the course of a week one of the heads of the ministerial, and one of the ex-ministerial party. In point of ability, Lord Grenville is, I think, far superior to any one I have seen here. Lord Lansdowne, with whom I had a delightful tête-à-tête walk yesterday, told me that Lord Grenville can be fully known only when people come to do political business with him: there he excels. You know his preface to Lord Chatham’s Letters. His manner of speaking in the House is not pleasing, Lord Lansdowne says: from being very near-sighted he has a look of austerity and haughtiness, and as he cannot see all he wants to see, he throws himself back with his chin up, determined to look at none. Lord Lansdowne gave me an instance — I may say a warning — of the folly of judging hastily of character at first sight from small circumstances. In one of Cowper’s letters there is an absurd character of Lord Grenville, in which he is represented as a petit-maître. This arose from Lord Grenville taking up his near-sighted glass several times during his visit. There cannot, in nature or art, be a man further from a petit-maître.

  Lady Bathurst is remarkably obliging to me: we have many subjects in common — her brother, the Duke of Richmond, and all Ireland; her aunt, Lady Louisa Connolly, and Miss Emily Napier, and all the Pakenhams, and the Duchess of Wellington. The Duke lately said to Mrs. Pole, “After all, home is what we must look to at last.”

  Lady Georgiana is a very pretty, and I need scarcely say, fashionable-looking young lady, easy, agreeable, and quite unaffected.

  This visit to Bowood has surpassed my expectation in every respect. I much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne’s happiness with her husband and her children: beauty, fortune, cultivated society, in short, everything that the most reasonable or unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable and so desirous to make others happy, that it is impossible not to love her; and the most envious of mortals, I think, would have the heart opened to sympathy with her. Then Lord and Lady Lansdowne are so fond of each other, and show it, and don’t show it, in the most agreeable manner. His conversation is very various and natural, full of information, given for the sake of those to whom he speaks, never for display. What he says always lets us into his feelings and character, and therefore is interesting.

  To MRS. EDGEWORTH THE GROVE, EFFING, Oct. 4, 1818.

  I mentioned one day at dinner at Bowood that children have very early a desire to produce an effect, a sensation in company. “Yes,” said Lord Lansdowne, “I remember distinctly having that feeling, and acting upon it once in a large and august company, when I was a young boy, at the time of the French Revolution, when the Duke and Duchess de Polignac came to Bowood, and my father was anxious to receive these illustrious guests with all due honour. One Sunday evening, when they were all sitting in state in the drawing-room, my father introduced me, and I was asked to give the company a sermon. The text I chose was, quite undesignedly, ‘Put not your trust in princes.’ The moment I had pronounced the words, I saw my father’s countenance change, and I saw changes in the countenances of the Duke and Duchess, and of every face in the circle. I saw I was the cause of this; and though
I knew my father wanted to stop me, I would go on, to see what would be the effect. I repeated my text, and preached upon it, and as I went on, made out what it was that affected the congregation.”

  Afterwards Lord Shelburne desired the boy to go round the circle and wish the company good-night; but when he came to the Duchesse de Polignac, he could not resolve to kiss her; he so detested the patch of rouge on her cheek, he started back. Lord Shelburne whispered a bribe in his ear — no, he would not; and they were obliged to laugh it off. But his father was very much vexed.

  HAMPSTEAD, Oct. 13.

  We had a delightful drive here yesterday from Epping. Joanna Baillie and her sister, most kind, cordial, and warm-hearted, came running down their little flagged walk to welcome us. Mrs. Hunter, widow of John Hunter, dined here yesterday; she wrote “The son of Alnomac shall never complain,” and she entertained me exceedingly; and both Joanna and her sister have most agreeable and new conversation — not old, trumpery literature over again, and reviews, but new circumstance worth telling, apropos to every subject that is touched upon: frank observations on character, without either ill-nature or the fear of committing themselves: no blue-stocking tittle-tattle, or habits of worshipping, or being worshipped: domestic, affectionate, good to live with, and, without fussing continually, doing what is most obliging, and whatever makes us feel most at home. Breakfast is very pleasant in this house, and the two good sisters look so neat and cheerful.

  Oct 15.

  We went to see Mrs. Barbauld at Stoke Newington. She was gratified by our visit, and very kind and agreeable.

  BOWOOD, Nov. 3, 1818.