Chapter XIV: Last Years (1)

More and more Miss Edgeworth's life revolved round home and friends. "In this world, in which I have lived nearly three-quarters of a century, I have found nothing one-quarter so well worth living for as old friends," she said. In her person old age was seen in its most attractive form. Her lively interests remained undimmed. At seventy she even set herself to learn a new language, Spanish, while her impulsiveness never became extinct, though she playfully hoped that, provided she lived so long, she might perhaps at eighty arrive at years of discretion. It was in 1835 that Mr. Ticknor, the American historian of Spanish literature, visited Edgeworthstown. He has recorded in his journal a pleasing and vivid picture of his visit. He describes Miss Edgeworth as small, short and spare, with frank and kind manners, always looking straight into the face of those she spoke to with a pair of mild, deep gray eyes. Her kindness and vivacity instantly put her visitors at ease. Mr. Ticknor was also impressed with the harmony that existed in a family composed of the most heterogeneous relationships. What struck him about Miss Edgeworth herself was her uncommon quickness of perception, her fertility of allusion, and the great resources of fact which a remarkable memory supplied to her. He likens her conversation to that of her own Lady Davenant. Mr. Ticknor observed that though she would talk freely about herself and her works, she never introduced the subject, and never seemed glad to continue it. Indeed, though he watched carefully for it, he could not detect either any of the mystification or the vanity of authorship. He was struck with her good nature and desire to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could, though never so far as to be unreasonable.

"In her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt, Mrs. Sneyd, who cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and admiration."

The dispersion of so many members of her family imposed much letter-writing on Miss Edgeworth, for all turned to her graphic pen for news of the dear old home. And, as before when she was away, those she left behind had to share in her pleasures, or they would be but sorry pleasures to her. Death, as well as marriages, had thinned the family ranks. Tenacious and warm in her affections as she was, Miss Edgeworth never took a morbid view concerning those who were gone. Everything morbid was foreign to her nature.

There is something mournful, yet pleasingly painful, in the sense
of the ideal presence of the long-loved dead. Those images people
and fill the mind with unselfish thoughts, and with the salutary
feeling of responsibility and constant desire to be and to act in
this world as the superior friend would have wished and approved.

And there were so many still left to love, young and old. "Who would not like to live to be old if they could be so happy in friends as I am?" The enthusiastic affection in her peculiar family relations, which she kept unimpaired, cannot be better shown than by quoting one of the countless letters she wrote concerning those dear to her:--

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, NOV. 1, 1838.

MY DEAR MR. AND MRS. TICKNOR:

I know so well your kind feelings towards all this family, that I
am sure you will be pleased with the intelligence which I am going
to communicate to you.

My sister Honora is going to be happily married to a person every
way suited to her (and that is saying a great deal), as you who
most kindly and justly appreciated her will readily join with me in
thinking. The gentleman's name, Captain Beaufort, R. N., perhaps
you may be acquainted with, as he is in a public situation, and not
unknown to literary and scientific fame. He is a naval officer. (I
hope you like this officer's name?) He made some years ago a survey
of the coast of Caramania, and wrote a small volume on that survey,
which has obtained for him a good reputation. He has been for some
years Hydrographer Royal.... In one word, he is a person publicly
esteemed; and privately he is beloved and esteemed by all who know
him best. He is and has been well known to us ever since the
present Mrs. Edgeworth's marriage with my father. Captain Beaufort
is Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest brother. As Mrs. E. is Honora's
_step_mother, you see that he is no relation whatever to Honora.
But the nearness of the connection has given us all the best means
of knowing him thoroughly. He was my dear father's most beloved
pupil and friend; by pupil I only mean that his being so much
younger made him look up to my father with reverence, and learn
from him in science and literature with delight. Thus has he been
long connected with all I love. He has been a widower two years. He
has three sons and four daughters.... The youngest daughter, Emily,
is a delightful child. Captain Beaufort lives in London, 11
Gloucester place; has a very comfortable house, and sufficient
fortune for all their moderate wishes. Honora's fortune, which is
ample, will give them affluence.

My dear Mrs. Ticknor, I know you particularly liked Honora, and
that you will be interested in hearing all these particulars,
though it seems impertinent to detail them across the Atlantic to
one who will, I fear, never see any one of the persons I have
mentioned. Yet affections such as yours keep warm very long and at
a great distance.

I feel that I have got into a snug little corner in both your
hearts, and that you will excuse a great deal from me; therefore I
go on without scruple drawing upon your sympathy, and you will not
protest my draft.

You saw how devoted Honora was to her aunt, Mrs. Mary Sneyd, whom
you liked so much; and you will easily imagine what a struggle
there has been in Honora's mind before she could consent to a
marriage with even such a man as Captain Beaufort, when it must
separate her from her aunt. Captain Beaufort himself felt this so
much that he never would have pressed it. He once thought that she
might be prevailed upon to accompany them to London and to live
with them. But Mrs. Mary Sneyd could not bear to leave Mrs.
Edgeworth, and this place which she has made her heart's home. She
decided Captain Beaufort and her niece to make her happy by
completing their union, and letting her feel that she did not
prevent the felicity of the two persons she loves best now in the
world. She remains with us.

The marriage is to take place next Tuesday or Thursday, and my Aunt
Mary will go to the church with her niece and give her away. I must
tell you a little characteristic trait of this aunt, the least
selfish of all human beings. She has been practicing getting up
early in the morning, which she has not done for two years--has
never got up for breakfast. But she has trained herself to rising
at the hour at which she must rise on the wedding-day, and has
walked up and down her own room the distance she must walk up and
down the aisle of the church, to insure her being accustomed to
the exertion and able to accomplish it easily. This she did for a
long time without our knowing it, till Honora found it out. Mrs.
Mary Sneyd is quite well and in excellent spirits.

A younger sister of mine, Lucy, of whom you have heard us speak as
an invalid, who was at Clifton with that dear Sophy whom we have
lost, is now recovered, and has returned home to take Honora's
place with her Aunt Mary; and Aunt Mary likes to have her, and Lucy
feels this a great motive to her to overcome a number of nervous
feelings, which formed part of her illness. A regular course of
occupations and duties, and feeling herself essential to the
happiness and the holding together of a family she so loves, will
be the best strengthening medicine for her. She arrived at home
last night. My sister Fanny and her husband, Lestock Wilson, are
with us. My sister has much improved in health; she is now able to
walk without pain, and bore her long journey and voyage here
wonderfully. I have always regretted, and always shall regret, that
this sister Fanny of mine had not the pleasure of becoming
acquainted with you. You really must revisit England. My sister
Harriet Butler, and Mr. Butler, and the three little dear Foxes,
are all around me at this instant. Barry Fox, their father, will be
with us in a few days, and Captain Beaufort returns from London on
Monday. You see what a large and happy family we are!!!

Do I not give you some proof, my dear Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor, of my
affection in writing to you at this moment? and if I write without
much sense or connection you will not be surprised.

My head is really upside down, and my feelings so divided between
joy and sorrow--joy for Honora's happiness, but sorrow for the
parting that must be!

It will all settle down under the hand of strong necessity and of
lenient time. My sisters Fanny and Harriet will stay with us some
weeks after the marriage; this will be a great comfort.

Mr. Butler will perform the happy, awful ceremony. How people who
do not love can ever dare to marry, to approach the altar to
pronounce that solemn vow, I cannot conceive.

My thoughts are so engrossed by this subject that I absolutely
cannot tell you of anything else. You must tell me of everything
that interests you, else I shall not forgive myself for my egotism.

I am most sincerely and affectionately, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, with
affectionate remembrances to your engaging daughter, not forgetting
your little darling,

Yours most sincerely,

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

Mention Lockhart's _Memoirs of Scott_, of which my head and heart
were full before this present all-engrossing subject overcame me.

I shall be quite rational again, I am sure, by the time your answer
reaches me, so pray do not treat me as quite a hopeless person to
write rationally to.

Mrs. Edgeworth desires me to send you her very affectionate
remembrances.

I believe, I am almost sure, that I wrote to you, my dear Mr.
Ticknor, some months ago while you were on the Continent, to thank
you for the present you sent me, through Mr. Norton's means, of an
American edition of my works. I thought it beautifully printed and
bound, and the engravings excellent, particularly that for _Helen_,
and the vignette for _Helen_, which we have not in the English
edition. I have another American copy of this edition, and I have
left yours for life with my brother Francis and my Spanish sister
Rosa, who live in a little cottage near Windsor, and have not
money to indulge themselves in the luxury of books. I hope you will
not be angry with me for so doing; no, I think you will be glad
that I made your present give me the greatest possible sum of
pleasure. Take into account the pride I felt in saying, _Mr.
Ticknor sent me these books_.

I am ashamed to see that I have come so far in a second sheet, and
in spite of all the wonderings at what can Maria _be about_?

_Sense in my next._

In answer to a letter from Mr. Ticknor, describing to her his library, in which the only picture was one of Sir Walter Scott, Miss Edgeworth wrote a reply, of which a portion has been published, but which contains besides an able parallel, or rather contrast, between Washington and Napoleon, worthy of preservation for its own sake, and as a testimony to her unimpaired powers:--

TRIM, NOV. 19TH, 1840.

"Who talks of '_Boston_' in a voice so sweet?" Who wishes to see me
there? and to show me their home, their family, their country? I
have been there--at Boston! "Yes, and in Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor's
happy, beautiful home." I have been up "the slope of the Boston
hillside," have seen "the fifty acres of public park" in all its
verdure, with "its rich and venerable trees," its graveled
promenade surrounding it, with those noble rows of venerable elms
on either side. I have gone up the hillside and the steps profusely
decked with luxuriant creepers; I have walked into Mr. and Mrs.
Ticknor's house, as I was desired--have seen the three rooms
opening into one another, have sat in the library, too, and
thought--and thought it all charming. Looking into the country, as
you know the windows all do, I saw down through "the vista of
trees" to the quiet bay and the "beautiful" hills beyond, and I
"watched the glories of the setting sun" lighting up country and
town, "trees, turf and water!"--an Italian sun not more gorgeously
attended than this "New England luminary" setting or rising. I met
Sir Walter Scott in Mr. Ticknor's library with all his benign, calm
expression of countenance, his eye of genius and his mouth of
humor--such as he was before the life of life was gone, such as
genius loved to see him, such as American genius has _given_ him to
American friendship, immortalized in person as in mind. His very
self I see feeling, thinking and about to speak--and to a friend to
whom he loved to speak; and well placed and to his liking he seems
in this congenial library, presiding and sympathizing. But my dear
madam, ten thousand books, "about ten thousand books," do you say
this library contains? My dear Mrs. Ticknor! Then I am afraid you
must have double rows--and that is a plague. But you may ask why do
I conceive you have double rows? Because I cannot conceive how else
the book-cases could hold the ten thousand. Your library is 34 by
22, you say. But to be sure you have not given me the height, and
that height may make out room enough. Pray have it measured for me,
that I may drive this odious notion of _double rows_ out of my
head--"and what a head," you may say, "that must be that could
calculate in such a place and at such a time!" It was not my poor
head, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, but Captain Beaufort's
ultra-accurate head. I gave him through Honora the description of
your library, and he (jealous, I am clear, for the magnitude and
number of his own library and volumes) set to work at 22 by
34--and there I leave him--till I have _the height_ to confound him
completely. You see, my dear friends, that you need not again ask
me _to go_ to see you--for I have seen and I know everything about
your home; full as well I know Boston and your home as you know
ours at Edgeworthstown. It is your turn now to come and see us
again. But I am afraid to invite you, lest you should be
disenchanted, and we should lose the delightful gratification we
enjoy in your glamor of friendship. Aunt Mary, however, is really
all you think and saw her, and in her ninety-first year 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 Fanny and her husband, have all been with us 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. E., 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. E.'s and all our inexpressible comfort and support,
also for the good of the country, 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 Fanny 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 lionizing of London. For tho' 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-humored 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. "Nobody 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 mere plain truth. I shall return home 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. You see I depend _enough_ on the
sincerity of your curiosity and sympathy, and I thank you in kind
for all you have been so affectionately good to tell me of
yourselves.

I have been lately reading Thibeaudeau's ten volumes of the History
of Napoleon--_Le Consulat et l'Empire_--immediately after having
read the life of Washington by Sparks, a book which I think I
mentioned to you had been sent to me by an American Jewess of
Philadelphia, Miss Gratz. A most valuable present--a most
interesting work it is. The comparison between the characters,
power, deeds, fortune and fate of Washington and Napoleon
continually pressed on my mind as I read their lives; and
continually I wished that some modern Plutarch with more of
religious, if not more of moral and political knowledge and
philosophy than the ancient times afforded, would draw a
parallel--no, not a _parallel_, for that could not be--but a
comparison between Napoleon and Washington. It would give in the
result a comparison between moral and intellectual power on the
highest scale, and with the fullest display in which they have ever
been seen in two national heroes. The superior, the universal
abilities of Bonaparte, his power of perseverance, of transition of
resource, of comprehensiveness, of adaptation of means to ends, and
all tending to his own aggrandizement, and his appetite for
dominion growing with what it fed upon, have altogether been most
astonishingly displayed in the Frenchman's history of Napoleon. The
integrity, disinterestedness, discretion, persevering adherence to
one great purpose, marking the character and the career of
Washington, are all faithfully portrayed by his American
biographer, and confirmed by state papers and by the testimony of
an independent world. The comparison between what Napoleon and
Washington did living, and left dying, of the fruits and
consequences of their deeds, would surely be a most striking and
useful moral and political lesson on true and false glory, and
further, would afford the strongest illustrations of the difference
in human affairs of what is called the power of fortune and the
influence of _prestige_, and the power of moral character and
virtue. See Napoleon deserted at his utmost need by those his
_prosperous_ bounty gorged. See Napoleon forced to abdicate his
twice-snatched imperial sceptre!--and compare this with your
Washington laying down his dictatorship, his absolute dominion,
_voluntarily_, the moment he had accomplished his great purpose of
making his beloved country, the New World, free and independent.
Then the deep, silent attachment shown to him when he retired from
the army, parted from military power, took leave of public life, is
most touching--quite sublime in its truth and simplicity, in as
strong contrast as possible with all the French acclamations,
inconstancy, frivolity, desertion, treachery, insult, toward their
prostrate idol of an Emperor. I felt while I read, and I feel while
I reflect, how much of the difference between Napoleon and
Washington must be ascribed to the different times, nations,
circumstances in which they were placed. But independent of all
these, the comparison ably and clearly drawn would lie between the
individual characters--between moral and religious power and
influence, and intellectual powers even supported by military glory
and political despotism. The comparison would ultimately lie
between success and merit, and between their transient and durable
effects--their worldly and never-dying consequences.

Forgive me, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, for my having been actually run
away with thus, and forgetting what I was going to say when I
began. I was going to say that I wish Mr. Ticknor would draw the
comparison between these two heroes of false and true
glory--between real patriotism, true and great to the last, and
ambition using patriotism as a mask, and having it struck from his
hand powerless at the last. There is no one more able, better
fitted to draw this than your husband. Channing has said well of
the character of Napoleon as far as he went. But Mr. Ticknor, I
conceive, has wider views, more means of information, and a less
rhetorical style than Channing: and Sparks, having been the
biographer of Washington, might be considered as a party too much
concerned to be quite impartial. I am ashamed to have written so
much that must seem common-place to him. But I will not tear the
pages, as I am tempted to do, because there is a possibility that
when you read them to him it might turn his mind to the
subject--and no matter for the rest.

* * * * *

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 by
the view you gave me of your public festivity and celebration of
your American day of days--your national festival in honor 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 one hour, or join in rejoicing or
feeling for their country. Father Mathew, one might have hoped,
considering the good he has effected for all Ireland, and
considering his own unimpeachable character and his real
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 as I am
_just now assured_, 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 Mathew treats _heretics all as one_, as Catholics
themselves! and would have 'em 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. I have written so much to Mr.
Ticknor about Father Mathew that I must here stop, or take care
lest I run on with him again. Once set a-running, you see how I go
on. You having encouraged me, and I from having conversed with you
even for a few days, we have so much knowledge of each other's
minds that it is as easy and pleasant to me to write as to speak to
you. I will send you some Irish tales newly published by Mrs. Hall,
which I think you will like, both from their being well-written and
interesting portraitures of Irish life and manners, and from the
conciliating, amiable and truly _feminine_ (not meaning _feeble_)
tone in which they are written.

* * * * *

I have not yet thanked you enough, I feel, for _Rollo_. Our
children all, and we ourselves, delight in him at play and at work,
and every way, and we wish to see more of him. If there be any more
of him, pray pack him up bag and baggage and send him off by first
steamer, steam-haste. By the by, are you or your children
acquainted with the elephant who in his haste forgot to pack up his
trunk?

If you are not acquainted with him, I shall have the pleasure of
introducing him to you and yours.

Meantime, if you wish to be amused, and with what is new and what
is true, read Mrs. Wilmot's _Memoirs of the Princess Dashkoff_, and
her own residence in Russia. We know enough of the author to
warrant the whole to be true. I do not say that she tells the whole
truth, but that all she does tell is true, and what she does not
tell she was bound in honor and friendship, and by the tacit,
inviolable compact between confidence shown and accepted, never to
reveal, much less to publish. Both in the Princess Dashkoff's own
memoirs (very able and curious) and in Mrs. Wilmot's continuation
(very amusing and new) there are from time to time great gaps, on
coming to which the reader cries _Ha! Ha!_ and feels that he must
skip over. These gaps are never covered over; and when we come even
to dangerous ground we see that we must not turn that way, or hope
to get on in utter darkness and our guide deserting--or, if not
_deserting_, standing stock still, obstinately dumb. These memoirs
are not a book on which history could absolutely be founded, but a
book to which the judicious historian might safely _refer
illustrations_, and even for materials, all which it affords being
sound and solid. Much more, in short, may these memoirs be depended
upon than any or many of the French varnished and vamped-up
_Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire_.

After reading the book I wrote to Mrs. Wilmot, and after homage due
to her talents and her truth, I ventured to express, what I am sure
you will feel if you read the volume, some horror, towards the
close, at the Princess Dashkoff's accepting for herself or her
sister, or for whoever it was, a ball from Orloff, the
murderer--that Orloff who with his own hand strangled his Emperor.

Mrs. Wilmot made me but a lame apology for her dear princess, I
think, and an odd answer for herself. In the first place, she said,
it was so long ago. As if such a murder could be a by-gone tale! or
as if thirty or forty or any number of years could purify or
cleanse a murderer in the eyes and sense of humanity or justice! In
the next place she pleaded that she was so much pleased by Orloff's
angel daughter who stood beside him, and then with his parental
delight in her beauty, simplicity and elegance in the dance.

Mrs. Wilmot was sure I should have felt as she did, and have
forgotten the murderer in the father. But, on the contrary, I am
afraid I should have forgotten the father in the murderer; I fear I
should have seen only "_the vile spot_" which would never _out_ of
that hand! And oh! that horrible knee--I see it pressing on the
body of the breathless Peter; and, through all the music of the
ball-room band, methinks I hear "shrieks of an agonizing king."

Possibly in Russia "murder is lawful made by the excess," and may
be palliated by the impartial historian's observing, "_It was then
necessary that the Emperor should_ CEASE TO BE"--soft synonym for
assassination.

I ought not to leave Mrs. Wilmot and the Princess Dashkoff, however
this may be, with a tragical and unmerited impression on your mind.
I am quite convinced the princess had nothing to do with this
horrid affair, or that our countrywoman never would have gone or
never would have staid with her.

I can also assure you that when you read these memoirs you will be
convinced, as I am, that the Princess Dashkoff was quite pure from
all the Empress Catherine's libertine intrigues (I can use no
softer phrase). This is proved by facts, not words, for no word
does she say on the subject. But the fact is that during Orloff,
the favorite Orloff's reign and his numerous successors, the
Princess Dashkoff was never at court, banished herself on her
travels or at her far-distant _territories_; she over-rated,
idolized Catharine, but was her real friend, not flatterer.

It is scarcely worth telling you, but I will for your diversion
mention that I asked Mrs. Wilmot whether the Princess Dashkoff
evermore went about in the costume, which she described, of a man's
great-coat, with stars and strings over it, at _the ball_, and with
the sentimental old souvenir silk handkerchief about her throat.
Yes. But Mrs. Wilmot would not let me laugh at her friend, and I
liked her all the better. She defended the oddity by the kindness
of the motive. It was not affectation of singularity, but
privilege of originality, that should be allowed to a being so
feeling and so educated by circumstances and so isolated--so let
the ragged handkerchief and the old gloves museumized pass, and
even the old overall of the man's coat on a woman and a
princess--so be it.

But from the time of Cardinal Chigi and his one stump of a
twenty-years-old pen on which he piqued himself, I quite agree with
Cardinal Mazarin[11] that these petty singularities are proofs of a
little mind, instead of an originality of genius.

And now, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, "Bisogna levar l'incommodita"--to
use the parting phrase of a vulgar Italian who feels that she has
made an unconscionable visit: or, as the cockney would say as she
got up to depart from a morning _visitation_, "Time for me to be
going, I think." And if you do not think so, or have not thought so
ten pages ago, you are more indulgent and fonder of me than I had
any right or reason to expect, even after all I have heard _from_
and seen _of_ you.

I promise you that you shall not be so tried again for a
twelvemonth to come, at the least. Give my kind remembrances to
your eldest daughter, who so kindly remembers me, and give a kiss
for me to your youngest, that dear little plaything who cannot
remember me, but whom I shall never forget; nor her father's fond
look at her, when the tear was forgotten as soon as shed.

Ever affectionately, dear Mrs. Ticknor,

Your obliged friend,

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

Turn over, and as the children's fairy-boards say, "you shall see
what you shall see."

N. B.--Among the various scratchifications and scarifications in
this volume, you may remark that there have been reiterated
scratches at Mrs. and Miss Wilmot, and attempts alternately to turn
the lady into _Mrs._ and Miss.

Be it now declared and understood that the lady is not either Mrs.
or Miss Wilmot, but Mrs. Bradford--born _Wilmot_, daughter of a Mr.
and Mrs. Wilmot of Cork--went over to Russia to _better herself_ at
the invitation of the Princess Dashkoff, who had, in a visit to
Ireland, become acquainted with some of her family. What motives
induced her to go to Russia, except the general notion of bettering
her fortune, I cannot tell. But she did better her fortune, for the
princess gave her pearls in strings, and diamonds in necklaces and
rings, and five thousand solid pounds in her pocket, for all which
she had like to have been poisoned before she could clear away with
them out of Russia.

When she came back she married, or was married to, Mr. Bradford, a
clergyman, and now lives in Sussex, England.

Now, in consideration of my having further bored you with all this,
be pleased whenever you see _Mrs._ or _Miss Wilmot_ in the
foregoing pages to read _Mrs. Bradford_, and you will save me
thereby the trouble and danger of scratching Mrs. or Miss Wilmot
into ten or eleven holes.

The visit to London referred to was paid. Part of the time was spent agreeably visiting friends, seeing sights and reading new books, among them Darwin's _Voyage in the Beagle_, which delighted Miss Edgeworth. But the larger portion of her stay was occupied in nursing her sister Fanny through a weary illness, with the added mental anxiety of knowing that Mrs. Edgeworth was ill at home. Both invalids, however, happily recovered, yet Miss Edgeworth was to find an empty chair on her return; her aunt, Mary Sneyd, had been taken away at the advanced age of ninety. As often before, she felt the sorrow keenly, but rallied bravely from its effects for the sake of those who were left and who depended on her yet more.

During the summer of 1842 Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall visited Ireland. They spent some days at Edgeworthstown, with the avowed purpose of writing of its occupants, and we have from their pen also a pleasant picture of the family home-life:--

"The library at Edgeworthstown" (say the writers) "is by no means the reserved and solitary room that libraries are in general. It is large and spacious and lofty; well stored with books, and embellished with those most valuable of all classes of prints--the suggestive; it is also picturesque, having been added to so as to increase its breadth; the addition is supported by square pillars, and the beautiful lawn seen through the windows, embellished and varied by clumps of trees judiciously planted, imparts much cheerfulness to the exterior. An oblong table in the centre is a sort of rallying-point for the family, who group around it, reading, writing or working; while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious upon one point--that all in the house should do exactly as they like, without reference to her--sits quietly and abstractedly in her own peculiar corner on the sofa, her desk--upon which lies Sir Walter Scott's pen, given to her by him when in Ireland--placed before her upon a little quaint table, as unassuming as possible. Miss Edgeworth's abstractedness would puzzle the philosophers: in that same corner, and upon that table, she has written nearly all that has enlightened and delighted the world. There she writes as eloquently as ever, wrapt up to all appearance in her subject, yet knowing, by a sort of instinct, when she is really wanted in dialogue; and, without laying down her pen, hardly looking up from her page, she will, by a judicious sentence wisely and kindly spoken, explain and elucidate in a few words, so as to clear up any difficulty; or turn the conversation into a new and more pleasing current. She has the most harmonious way of throwing in explanations--informing without embarrassing. A very large family party assemble daily in this charming room, young and old bound alike to the spot by the strong cords of memory and love. Mr. Francis Edgeworth, the youngest son of the present Mrs. Edgeworth, and of course Miss Edgeworth's youngest brother, has a family of little ones who seem to enjoy the freedom of the library as much as their elders. To set these little people right if they are wrong; to rise from her table to fetch them a toy, or even to save a servant a journey; to mount the steps and find a volume that escapes all eyes but her own, and, having done so, to find exactly the passage wanted--are hourly employments of this most unspoiled and admirable woman. She will then resume her pen, and, what is more extraordinary, hardly seem to have even frayed the thread of her ideas; her mind is so rightly balanced, everything is so honestly weighed, that she suffers no inconvenience from what would disturb and distract an ordinary writer."

Miss Edgeworth wrote of this notice:--

Mrs. Hall has sent to me her last number, in which she gives
Edgeworthstown. All the world here are pleased with it, and so am
I. I like the way in which she has mentioned my father
particularly. There is an evident kindness of heart and care to
avoid everything that could hurt any of our feelings, and at the
same time a warmth of affectionate feeling, unaffectedly expressed,
that we all like in spite of our dislike to that sort of thing.

Early in 1843 Miss Edgeworth was taken seriously ill with bilious fever, from the effects of which she recovered but slowly. In late autumn she once more went to London to pass the winter with her sister. It was to be her last visit. She enjoyed it with all the freshness of youth, sight-seeing and visiting without fatigue, even attending an opening of Parliament, which she protested had not tired her more than if she had been eighteen. Her prayer and hope was, as it had been her father's, that her body might not survive her mind, and that she might leave a tender and not unpleasing recollection of herself in the hearts of her friends. Her letters certainly showed no falling-off in power, as is amply proved by one written during this visit to her Boston friends:--

LONDON, 1 North Audley street,}
Grosvenor square, January 1, 1844.}

MY DEAR FRIENDS MR. AND MRS. TICKNOR:

I cannot begin this new year better, or more to my own heartfelt
satisfaction, than by greeting you with my best wishes for many,
many happy years to you of your domestic felicity and public
estimation--_estimation_ superior to celebrity, you know, Mr.
Ticknor, disdaining _notoriety_, which all low minds run after and
all high minds despise. How I see this every day in this London
world, and _hear_ it from all other worlds--loudly from your New
World across the great Atlantic, where those who make their boast
of independence and equality are struggling and quarreling for
petty preeminence and "vile trash."

I have been here with my sister, Mrs. Wilson, in a peaceful, happy
home these six weeks, and the rattle of Grosvenor square, at the
corner of which her house is, never disturbs the quiet of her
little library, which is at the back of the house, and looks out
upon gardens and trees (such as they are!)....

Among the pleasantest days I have enjoyed in London society, among
friends of old standing and acquaintance of distinguished talents,
I spent two days at my very good old friend Dr. Holland's, where I
heard your name and your letter to your countrymen on Sydney
Smith's memorial spoken of in the highest terms of just estimation!
You know that Dr. Holland is married to Sydney Smith's daughter. I
hope you know Dr. Holland's book, _Medical Notes_, which, though
the title might seem exclusively professional, is full of such
general and profound views of the human mind as well as body, that
it could not but be interesting to you, and would prove to you for
my present purpose that he is a person whose estimation and whose
praise is worthy of you....

I do not know whether you made acquaintance, when you were in
London, with Sydney Smith's brother, Mr. Robert S., or, as he is
strangely cognomened (or nicknamed) Bobus Smith. He is well known
as one of the celebrities of Holland House, where he has been
figuring this half-century. But he no longer figures as a
diner-out, and indeed, I believe from that notoriety he always
seceded. He is now old and blind, but nevertheless has a most
intelligent, energetic countenance, and I should almost say
penetrating eye. When he turns and seems to look at me, I feel as
if he looked into my face, and am glad so to feel, as he encourages
me to open my mind to him by opening his own at once to me. I saw
him for the first time a few evenings ago at Dr. Holland's, and sat
between him and your American ambassador, Mr. Everett. I was much
pleased by their manner towards each other, and by all they said
of the letter of which I spoke. Mr. R. Smith has, in the opinion of
all who know him and his brother, the strongest and highest and
deepest powers of the two; not so much wit, but a more sound,
logical understanding--superior might in the reasoning faculty. If
the two brothers' hands grasped and grappled for mastery, with
elbows set down upon the table, in the fashion in which schoolboys
and others try strength, Robert Smith's hand would be uppermost,
and Sydney must give way, _laughing_ perhaps, and pretending that
he only gave way to fight another day. But independently of victory
or trials of strength, the earnestness for truth of the blind
brother would decide my interest and sympathy in his favor.

Mr. Everett and Mr. R. Smith seemed to me properly to esteem each
other, and to speak with perfect courtesy and discretion upon the
most delicate national questions, on which, in truth, they
liberally agreed more than could have been or was expected by the
bystanders of different parties. Oh, Party Spirit! Party Spirit!
how many follies, how many outrages are committed in thy name, even
in common conversation!

Mr. Everett did me the honor to come to visit us a few mornings
after I had first met him at Dr. Holland's, and sat a good hour
conversing as if we had been long known to each other. It is to me
the most gratifying proof of esteem to be thus let at once into the
real mind, the _sanctum sanctorum_, instead of being kept with
ceremonials and compliments on the steps, in the ante-chamber, or
even in the _salle de reception_, doing _Kotoo_ Chinese or any
other fashion.

We went over vast fields of thought in our short hour, from America
to France, and to England and to Ireland, Washington, Lafayette,
Bonaparte, O'Connell. You may guess it could only be a _vue
d'oiseau_, flying too, but still a pounce down upon a true point
now and then, and agreeing in our general unchangeable view that
moral excellence is essential to make the man really great; that
the highest intellectual superiority that can be given by
Omnipotence to mortal ought not and does not, even in human
opinion, entitle him without moral worth to the character of great.
Mr. Everett tells me that Washington Irving is going to publish
another life of Washington. I fear his workmanship will be too fine
and delicate for the main matter. Boldness, boldness, boldness--and
brevity. Oh, the strength of brevity! Brevity keeps fast hold of
the memory, and more fast hold of the judgment; the whole process,
_en petit compris_, goes in a few words with the verdict to "_long
posterity_," while elegance only charms the taste, accords with the
present fashion of literature, and passes away, gliding gracefully
into "mere oblivion."

Lecture upon brevity well exemplified by present correspondent.

A severe attack of erysipelas laid her low this summer; but if it weakened her body it did not depress her mental faculties. She writes to her cousin with all the buoyancy of youth:--

I am right glad to look forward to the hope of seeing you again,
and talking all manner of nonsense and sense, and laughing myself
and making you laugh, as I used to do, though I am six years beyond
the allotted age and have had so many attacks of illness within the
last two years; but I am, as Bess Fitzherbert and poor dear Sophy
used to say, like one of those pith puppets that you knock down in
vain; they always start up the same as ever.... Sir Henry Marsh
managed me with skill, and let me recover slowly, as nature
requires at advanced age. I am obliged to repeat myself, "advanced
age," because really and truly neither my spirits nor my powers of
locomotion and facility of running up and down stairs would put me
in mind of it. I do not find either my love for my friends or my
love of literature in the least failing. I enjoyed, even when
flattest in my bed, hearing Harriet Butler reading to me till
eleven o'clock at night.

Her interest in the current literature was sustained; and though she had little sympathy with the romantic school of poetry and fiction that had arisen, her criticisms were both fair and acute. Of the modern French writers she said:--

All the fashionable French novelists will soon be reduced to
advertising for a _new vice_, instead of, like the Roman Emperor,
simply for a new pleasure. It seems to me with the Parisian
novelists a first principle now that there is no pleasure without
vice, and no vice without pleasure, but that the Old World vices
having been exhausted, they must strain their genius to invent new;
and so they do, in the most wonderful and approved bad manner, if I
may judge from the few specimens I have looked at.

_Henrietta Temple_ she condemns as "trash," "morally proving that who does wrong should be rewarded with love and fortune." Indeed, so eager was she over books, so ardently did she still enter into all adventures and details, that when she was ill her doctor found it needful to prescribe that her reading must be confined to some old, well-known work, or else something that should entertain and interest her without over-exciting her or straining her attention.

During the whole of 1846 the long illness and death of her brother Francis absorbed all Miss Edgeworth's interest. Next year came the terrible potato famine. She strained every nerve to help the sufferers; her time, her thoughts, her purse, her whole strength, were devoted to the poor. She could hardly feel or think on any other theme; plans to relieve the distress, petitions for aid, filled her letters. She even turned her attention once more to writing, in order to get more money for her starving countrymen. The result was _Orlandino_, a tale for children, relating the fortunes and reformation of a graceless truant. It was the last work she published--her literary career thus ending, as it began, with a tale to give gladness to childhood. She had her reward in a great pleasure that came to her from America. The children of Boston, hearing what pains their kind friend in Ireland was taking for her unhappy compatriots, as a recognition of their love for her and her writings, organized a subscription. At the end of a few weeks they were able to send her one hundred and fifty barrels of flour and rice. They came with the simple address, worth more to her than many phrases: "To Miss Edgeworth, for her poor."

She was deeply touched and grateful. It touched her also that the porters, who carried the grain down to the shore, refused to be paid; and with her own hands she knitted a woolen comforter for each man and sent them to a friend for distribution. Before they reached their destination the hands that had worked them were cold, and the beating of that warm, kind heart stilled forever.

For scarcely was the famine over, and before Miss Edgeworth's over-taxed strength had time to recoup, another and yet heavier blow was to befall her. Indeed, many deaths and sorrows as she had known, in some respects this was the severest that had for some years come upon her. It was natural to see the old go before her, but not so the young, and when in 1848 her favorite sister Fanny died rather suddenly, Miss Edgeworth felt that the dearest living object of her love had gone.

The shock did not apparently tell on her health, as she continued to employ herself with her usual interest and sympathy in all the weal and woe of her family and many friends, but the life-spring had snapped, unknown perhaps even to her, certainly unknown to those around her. For she bore up bravely, cheerfully, and was to all appearances as bright as ever. Next to doing good, reading was still her greatest pleasure:--

Our pleasures in literature do not, I think, decline with age. Last
1st of January was my eighty-second birthday, and I think that I
had as much enjoyment from books as ever I had in my life.

History gave her particular delight:--

I am surprised to find how much more history interests me now than
when I was young, and how much more I am now interested in the same
events recorded, and their causes and consequences shown, in this
history of the French Revolution, and in all the history of Europe
during the last quarter of a century, than I was when the news came
fresh and fresh in the newspapers. I do not think I had sense
enough to take in the relations and proportions of the events. It
was like moving a magnifying glass over the parts of a beetle, and
not taking in the whole.

Macaulay's history charmed her, and in all her first enthusiasm she wrote a long letter about it to her old friend, Sir Henry Holland. He showed it to Macaulay, who was so struck with its discrimination and ability that he begged to be allowed to keep it. Among all the incidents connected with the publication of his book, nothing, it is said, pleased Macaulay more than the gratification he had contrived to give Miss Edgeworth as a small return for the enjoyment which, during more than forty years, he had derived from her writings:--

TRIM, April 2nd, 1849.

MY DEAR DR. HOLLAND: