But now that it is all over, and I can balance pains and pleasures, I declare that, upon the whole, I had more pleasure than pain from this journey; the perils of the road were far overbalanced by the diversion of seeing the people, and the seeing so many to me perfectly new characters and modes of living. The anxiety of Isabella’s illness, terrible as it was, and the fear of being ill myself and a burthen upon their hands, and even the horrid sense of remoteness and impossibility of communication with my own friends, were altogether overbalanced by the extraordinary kindness, and tenderness, and generous hospitality of the Martins. It will do my heart good all the days of my life to have experienced such kindness, and to have seen so much good in human nature as I saw with them — red M’Hugh included. I am sure I have a friend in Mrs. Martin: it is an extraordinary odd feeling to have made a friend at sixty-six years of age! You, my dear young Pakenham, can’t understand this; but you will live, I hope, to understand it, and perhaps to say, “Now I begin to comprehend what Maria, poor old soul! meant by that odd feeling at the end of her Connemara journey.”
When we were regretting to Lord Sligo that we had missed seeing so many persons and places on our tour whom we had at first setting out made it our object to see — Clifden, the Barony of Erris, and the wonderful Major Bingham — Lord Sligo comforted us by saying, “Depend upon it, you have seen more really of Connemara than any strangers who have ever travelled through it, exactly because you remained in one place and in one family, where you had time to see the habits of the people, and to see them nearly and familiarly, and without their being shown off, or thinking of showing themselves off to you.”
March 29.
I have been so busy at rents and odious accounts, that I have never been able to go on to you. Your mother returned home a few days ago, after seven months’ absence! You may guess how happy we were to have her again, and how we have been talking and hearing. Lucy bore the parting with her wonderfully well; indeed, she was anxious that her mother should return to us.
Young Walter — now Sir Walter — Scott has been quartered at Longford, and is now going to Dublin: he dined here on Saturday, and was just the same as when we saw him in 1825. Sophy and her three children round her must have surprised him not a little. [Footnote: Mrs. Fox, as Sophy Edgeworth, had been with her sister at Abbotsford in 1823.] It is a pity Maxwell was not in the group. Little fair-haired Willy, nothing daunted by the nearly seven-feet-high major in full uniform, marched up to him and patted his knee, and in return the major patted his head. His soft Scotch voice, and often the kind and playful turns in his conversation, reminded me both pleasurably and painfully of his father. Sophy wished that her children should hear the band of the regiment, and he promised that he would halt at Tuite’s gate, as a select party with the band were to go by Castle Pollard; and this morning, when I opened my eyes, I saw it was snowing so bitterly, I gave up all hopes of our being able to take the children to hear the band; but between seven, when I wakened, and half after nine, the appointed hour, many changes of the sky took place, and at the right moment the sun shone out, the clouds blew over the beech-trees, and Sophy was drawn in Willy Waller’s little carriage, with him in her lap; Honora, Mary Anne, Charlotte, and I accompanying. We had to wait some time, and went into what you would call Tuite’s house, but it is now Jem Newman’s; and there was his nice little wife, with her mouth full of the last potato she had eaten for breakfast; and she put away the half-full potato basket, and the boy with his can of milk retreated from the stool by the fire, and she welcomed us with Irish heart’s welcome in lip and eye; and the children were delighted watching the pig and the chickens feeding at the door.
At last the music was heard, and very pretty it was, and mother and children were happy; and Sir Walter stopped on his fine gray horse, and said, “You see, I have kept my word,” and then galloped off. A sergeant then came up to me with a slip of paper in his hand, saying, “Can you read write?” I said, I believed I could, and made out for him the route to Castle Pollard: the sound of the music died away, and we returned to breakfast. “Sire, il n’y a de circonstance où on ne prend pas de déjeuner,” as the man said to Buonaparte.
You will have seen in the newspapers the court-martial about Lord Brudenell and the 15th Hussars: Lord Forbes, in giving me an account of the matter, said, “Walter Scott, by his conduct, and the way in which he gave his testimony, covered himself with glory,” — told the truth like a man and a gentleman.
You may have also seen mentioned the murder of Captain Skyring, of the Aetna, of which Henry Beddoes was second lieutenant, off the coast of Africa. He wrote a few lines to Fanny after the catastrophe; happily for him he was kept by some duty on board. It was imprudent of Captain Skyring to attempt to land, and take observations, without having his ship near enough to defend him. The natives, all with arms, came round him, and began by stealing everything they could lay their hands on. Captain Skyring drew a circle round his circle, forbidding the thieves to pass it; but they passed it, and one was seizing the instrument in his hand, when the captain fired and killed the man; and then they all fell upon him, stabbed him with their pikes and knives, stripped the body, and left it with seventeen wounds. Our people afterwards got it back. We know no more as yet, but that Captain Beaufort was extremely shocked and grieved.
I have no domestic occurrence to tell you, except that a robin, who for several seasons has frequented this house, and Lucy’s room particularly, has this spring grown so familiar, that he began to build his nest in Lucy’s old bonnet, laid a great heap of leaves in it, which we used to see him bringing in his bill, the leaves often as large as his body. Yesterday morning Betty the housemaid said to your mother, “Ma’am, when I opened the hall door this morning, the robin flew in over my head, and knowing his way wherever he wanted to go through the doors, just as if he was master of the house, ma’am! And he sits down before a door, and looks to have it opened for him.” Dear little, impudent fellow! This packet concludes my chronicle of Connemara.
To C.S. EDGEWORTH. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 14, 1834.
Having now done with business I may turn to a little pleasure; a great deal you have given me, my dear Sneyd, by your friend Mr. Smedley’s approbation of Helen. His polite playful allusion to the names of the horses, which names at this moment I forget, reminds me of a similar touch of the Duchess of Wellington in describing one of the Duke’s battles, she quoted from the Knapsack, “Let the sugar basin be my master.”
I have written to Fanny about Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald’s death. I was very much shocked at it: I loved her; she was one of my earliest friends—”Leaf by leaf drops away.”
To MISS RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 22, 1834.
With all my heart I congratulate you on being in possession of your cottage. [Footnote: Dunmoe Cottage, at the end of the Black Castle demesne, about two miles from the house.] Harriet Butler told us how happy the people of Black Castle and Navan were, when they heard you were coming to live amongst them again. You are now as busy as possible arranging your things and considering how all and each of your friends will like what you do, and I am — very conceited — sure that you often think of Maria among the number, and that you have even already thought of a footstool for her. Emmeline has, by the bye, invented and executed, and given to my mother, the most ingenious footstool I ever saw, which folds up and can be put into a work-bag. She has also sent the nicest most agreeable presents to the little Foxes — a kaleidoscope, a little watering-pot, and a pair of little tin scales with weights; they set about directly weighing everything that could be put into them, ending with sugar-plums and sugar-candy.
We have been much amused with The Kuzzilbash and by Bubbles from the
Brunnen, by Captain Head.
To MISS RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 29, 1834.
I cannot, my dear Lady of Dunmoe, tell when I can be with you; go I will before autumn runs away with all your leaves, but I am afraid I must let autumn turn them of a sober hue, though I will not let
it go to the sear and yellow. In plain prose I am tied down now by rents and business.
We have been dining at Mrs. Blackall’s, and there met her pretty sister, Mrs. Johnstone, and very intelligent Captain Johnstone, a Berkshire man from near Hare Hatch, and had a very agreeable day, and much conversation on books and authors, and found that the Diary of an Ennuyée and Female Characters of Shakespeare, both very clever books, are by a lady who was governess to Mrs. Blackall and her sisters. Mrs. Rolle, her mother, read the Diary of an Ennuyée, and wondered when she saw “Mr. and Mrs. R.,” and all the places and people they had seen abroad, till she came to the name of Laura, and some lines to her by which she discovered that the author must be their former governess, Miss Murphy, now married to a very clever lawyer. [Footnote: Mrs. Jameson.] All the woes and heart-breakings are mere fable in the Diary. Her last book, Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, I like; there is a great deal of thought and feeling in it.
* * * * *
Miss Edgeworth’s Helen would never have been finished but for the encouragement shown by her sister Harriet, and her interest in the story. It is more of a “novel” than any of its predecessors, has more imagination, and its interest centres more around one person. Its object is to show how many of the troubles of social life arise from want of absolute truthfulness. Its principle is depicted in the explanation of one of its characters: “I wish that the word fib was out of the English language, and white lie drummed after it. Things by their right names, and we should all do much better. Truth must be told, whether agreeable or not.”
Helen was well received by the public, but Miss Edgeworth had great diffidence about it. To Dr. Holland she wrote:
* * * * *
I am very glad that you have been pleased with Helen — far above my expectations! and I thank you for that warmth of kindness with which you enter into all the details of the characters and plan of the story. Nothing but regard for the author could have made you give so much importance to my tale. It has always been my fault to let the moral I had in view appear too soon and too clearly, and I am not surprised that my old fault, notwithstanding some pains which I certainly thought I took to correct it, should still abide by me.
To MRS. STARK. [Footnote 1: Who had sent Miss Edgeworth a long criticism from her cousin, Colonel Matthew Stewart (son of Dugald Stewart), on her Helen.] EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Sept. 6, 1834.
Some of my friends, knowing the timidity, not to say cowardice, of my nature, have feared that I should be daunted by Colonel Stewart’s most just observations upon the defects and deficiencies of my past manner and principles of novel-writing; but, on the contrary, I, who know myself better, feel that, in spite of my timidity, I am, instead of being daunted, encouraged by such criticism. Such a writer and such a noble mind as Colonel Stewart’s having bestowed so much thought and time upon me and my fictions, raises both them and myself in my own opinion far more than could the largest “draught of unqualified praise” [Footnote: Quoted from Mr. Croker, who said that nothing ever satisfied an author, but large draughts of unqualified praise.] from any common critic. From feeling that he does justice in many points to the past, I rely upon his prophecies as to the future, and I feel my ambition strongly excited by his belief that I CAN, and his prognostic that I shall do better hereafter. Boileau says, “Trust a critic who puts his finger at once upon what you know to be your infirm part.” I had often thought and said to myself some of those things which Colonel Stewart has written, but never so strongly expressed, so fully brought home: my own rod of feathers did not do my business. I had often and often a suspicion that my manner was too Dutch, too minute; and very, very often, and warmly, admired the bold, grand style of the master hand and master genius. I know I feel how much more is to be done, ought to be done, by suggestion than by delineation, by creative fancy than by facsimile copying, — how much more by skilful selection and fresh and consistent combination — than can be effected by the most acute observation of individuals, or diligent accumulation of particulars.
But where I have erred or fallen short of what it is thought I might have done, it has not been from “drawing from the life, or from individuals, or from putting together actions or sayings noted in commonplace books from observation or hearsay in society.” I have seldom or ever drawn any one character — certainly not any ridiculous or faulty character, from any individual. Wherever, in writing, a real character rose to my view, from memory or resemblance, it has always been hurtful to me, because, to avoid that resemblance, I was tempted by cowardice or compelled by conscience to throw in differences, which often ended in making my character inconsistent, unreal.
At the hazard of talking too much of myself, which people usually do when once they begin, I must tell my penetrating critic exactly the facts, as far as I know them, about my habits of composition. He will at least see, by my throwing open my mind thus, that he has not made me afraid of him, but has won my confidence, and made me look for his future sympathy and assistance. I have no “vast magazine of a commonplace book.” In my whole life, since I began to write, which is now, I am concerned to state, upwards of forty years, I have had only about half a dozen little note-books, strangely and irregularly kept, sometimes with only words of reference to some book, or fact I could not bring accurately to mind. At first I was much urged by my father to note down remarkable traits of character or incidents, which he thought might be introduced in stories; and he often blamed that idleness or laziness, as he thought it in me, which resisted his urgency. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that it did better for me to keep the things in my head, if they suited my purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew that, when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not know where to look for it; that the labour of looking over a note-book would never do when I was in the warmth and pleasure of inventing; that I should never recollect the facts or ideas at the right time, if I did not put them up in my own way in my own head: that is, if I felt with hope or pleasure “that thought or that fact will be useful to me in such a character or story, of which I have now a first idea, the same fact or thought would recur, I knew, when I wanted it, in right order for invention.” In short, as Colonel Stewart guessed, the process of combination, generalisation, invention, was carried on always in my head best. Wherever I brought in bodily unaltered, as I have sometimes done, facts from real life, or sayings, or recorded observations of my own, I have almost always found them objected to by good critics as unsuited to the character, or in some way de trop. Sometimes, when the first idea of a character was taken from life from some ORIGINAL, and the characteristic facts noted down, or even noted only in my head, I have found it necessary entirely to alter these, not only from propriety, to avoid individual resemblance, but from the sense that the character would be only an EXCEPTION to general feeling and experience, not a rule. In short, exactly what Colonel Stewart says about “the conical hills” being the worst subjects for painters. As an instance I may mention King Corny, who is, I believe, considered more of a fancy piece, more as a romantic character than my usual common-life Dutch figures: the first idea of him was taken from the facts I heard of an oddity, a man, I believe, like no other, who lived in a remote part of Ireland, an ingenious despot in his own family, who blasted out of the rock on which his house was built half a kitchen, while he and family and guests were living in the house; who was so passionate, that children, grown-up sons, servants and all, ran out of the house at once when he fell into a passion with his own tangled hair; a man who used, in his impatience and rages, to call at the head of the kitchen stairs to his servants, “Drop whatever you have in your hand, and come here and be d —— d!” He was generous and kind-hearted, but despotic, and conceited to the most ludicrous degree: for instance, he thought he could work gobelin tapestry and play on the harp or mandolin better than any one living.
One after another, in working out King Corny, f
rom the first wrong hint I was obliged to give up every fact, except that he propped up the roof of his house and built downwards, and to generalise all; to make him a man of expedients, of ingenious substitutes, such as any clever Irishman in middle life is used to. I was obliged to retain, but soften, the despotism, and exalt the generosity, to make it a character that would interest. Not one word I ever heard said by the living man, or had ever heard repeated of his saying, except “Drop what you have,” etc., went into my King Corny’s mouth — would not have suited him. I was obliged to make him according to the general standard of wit and acuteness, shrewd humour and sarcasm, of that class of unread natural geniuses, an overmatch for Sir Ulick, who is of a more cultivated class of acute and roguish Irish gentlemen. Colonel Stewart sees from this how far he has guessed rightly as to several points, but I think I have always aimed more at making my characters representatives of classes than he conceives. It is plain that I have not attained my aim.
I never could use notes in writing Dialogues; it would have been as impossible to me to get in the prepared good things at the right moment in the warmth of writing conversation, as it would be to lug them in in real conversation, perhaps more so — for I could not write dialogues at all without being at the time fully impressed with the characters, imagining myself each speaker, and that too fully engrosses the imagination to leave time for consulting note-books; the whole fairy vision would melt away, and the warmth and the pleasure of invention be gone. I might often, while writing, recollect from books or life what would suit, and often from note-book, but then I could not stop to look, and often quoted therefore inaccurately. I have a quick recollective memory and retentive for the sort of things I particularly want; they will recur to me at the moment I want them years and years after they have lain dormant, but alas! my memory is inaccurate, has hold of the object only by one side — the side or face that struck my imagination, and if I want more afterwards I do not know even where to look for it. I mention this because Dugald Stewart once was curious to know what sort of memory I had, whether recollective or retentive.
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 681
