Chapter XII: Part 12

Yesterday morning I received the enclosed note from that most conceited and not over well-bred Mons. de Lamartine. I desired my friend Madame Belloc to use her own discretion in repeating my criticisms on his _Histoire des Girondins_, but requested that she would convey to him the thanks and admiration of our family for the manner in which he has mentioned the Abbé Edgeworth, and our admiration of the beauty of the writing of that whole passage in the work. At the same time I regretted that he had omitted "Fils de St. Louis," and also that he has not mentioned the circumstance of the crowd opening and letting the Abbé pass in safety immediately from the scaffold after the execution. This it seems to me necessary to note, as part of the picture of the times: a few days afterwards a price was set upon his head, and hundreds were ready for the reward to pursue and give him up. I copied this from Sneyd's _Memoir_, and the anecdote of the Abbé, when asked at a dinner (Ministerial) in London whether he said the words "Fils de St. Louis," etc., and his answer that he could not recollect, his mind had been so taken up with the event. I think Lamartine, in his note to me, turns this unfairly; and I feel, and I am sure so will you and Mr. Butler, "What an egotist and what a puppy it is!" But ovation has turned his head.

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On the 4th of February 1848, after a very short illness, Mrs. Lestock Wilson--Fanny Edgeworth--died. Maria survived her little more than a year. She bore the shock without apparent injury to her health, and she continued to employ herself with her usual benevolent interest and sympathy in all the business and pleasures of her family and friends; but strongly as she was attached to all her brothers and sisters, Fanny had been the dearest object of her love and admiration. To her friend Mrs. S.C. Hall, who wrote to her as usual on 1st January (1849), which was her birthday, she answered, "You must not delay long in finding your way to Edgeworthstown if you mean to see me again. Remember, you have just congratulated me on my eighty-second birthday." In the spring she spent some weeks at Trim, where her sister Lucy and Dr. Robinson were with her. She seemed unusually agitated and depressed in taking leave of her sister Harriet and Mr. Butler, but said as she went away, "At Whitsuntide I shall return."

Only a few weeks before her death Miss Edgeworth wrote:

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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 I ever had in my life.

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In her last letter to her sister, Honora Beaufort, she enclosed the lines:

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Ireland, with all thy faults, thy follies too,
I love thee still: still with a candid eye must view
Thy wit, too quick, still blundering into sense
Thy reckless humour: sad improvidence,
And even what sober judges follies call,
I, looking at the Heart, forget them all!

MARIA E. _May 1849_.

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On the morning of the 22nd of May Miss Edgeworth drove out, apparently in her usual health. On her return she was suddenly seized with pain of the heart, and in a few hours breathed her last in the arms of her devoted stepmother and friend.[Footnote: Mrs. Edgeworth herself lived till 1865, greatly honoured and beloved.]

Mrs. Edgeworth writes:

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Maria had always wished that her friends should be spared the anguish of seeing her suffer in protracted illness; she had always wished to die at home, and that I should be with her--both her wishes were fulfilled.

Extremely small of stature, her figure continued slight, and all her movements singularly alert to the last. No one ever conversed with her for five minutes without forgetting the plainness of her features in the vivacity, benevolence, and genius expressed in her countenance.[Footnote: In her old age Miss Edgeworth used to say, "Nobody is anything worse than 'plain' now; no one is ugly now but myself,"--but no one thought her so.]

Particularly neat in her dress and in all her ways, she had everything belonging to her arranged in the most perfect order--habits of order early impressed upon her mind by Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, which, with her methodical way of doing business, enabled her to get through a surprising amount of multifarious work in the course of every day.

She wrote almost always in the library, undisturbed by the noise of the large family about her, and for many years on a little desk her father had made for her, and on which two years before his death he inscribed the following words:

"On this humble desk were written all the numerous works of my daughter, Maria Edgeworth, in the common sitting-room of my family. In these works, which were chiefly written to please me, she has never attacked the personal character of any human being or interfered with the opinions of any sect or party, religious or political; while endeavouring to inform and instruct others, she improved and amused her own mind and gratified her heart, which I do believe is better than her head.

"R.L.E."

She used afterwards a writing-desk which had been her father's, but when at home it was always placed on a little table of his construction, which is in my possession, and to which she had attached many ingenious contrivances--a bracket for her candlestick, a fire-screen, and places for her papers. This little table being on castors, she could move it from the sofa by the fire to the window, or into a recess behind the pillars of the library, where she generally sat in summer time. She wrote on folio sheets of paper, which she sewed together in chapters.

To facilitate the calculation of the MS. for printing, and to secure each page containing nearly the same amount of writing, she used to prick the margin of her paper at equal distances, and her father made a little machine set with points by which she could pierce several sheets at once. A full sketch of the story she was about to write was always required by her father before she began it, and though often much changed in its progress, the foundation and purpose remained as originally planned. She rose, as I have said, early, and after taking a cup of coffee and reading her letters, walked out till breakfast-time, a meal she always enjoyed especially (though she scarcely ate anything); she delighted to read out and talk over her letters of the day, and listened a little to the newspapers, but she was no politician. She came into the breakfast-room in summer time with her hands full of roses, and always had some work or knitting to do while others ate. She generally sat down at her desk soon after breakfast and wrote till luncheon-time,--her chief meal in the day,--after which she did some needlework, often unwillingly, when eager about her letters or MSS., but obediently, as she had found writing directly after eating bad for her. Sometimes in the afternoon she drove out, always sitting with her back to the horses, and when quite at ease about them exceedingly enjoyed a short drive in an open carriage, not caring and often not knowing which road she went, talking and laughing all the time. She usually wrote all the rest of her afternoon, and in her latter years lay down and slept for an hour after dinner, coming down to tea and afterwards reading out herself, or working and listening to the reading out of some of the family. Her extreme enjoyment of a book made these evening hours delightful to her and to all her family. If her attention was turned to anything else, she always desired the reader to stop till she was able to attend, and even from the most apparently dull compositions she extracted knowledge or amusement. She often lingered after the usual bed-time to talk over what she had heard, full of bright or deep and solid observations, and gay anecdotes _à propos_ to the work or its author.

She had amazing power of control over her feelings when occasion demanded, but in general her tears or her smiles were called forth by every turn of joy and sorrow among those she lived with. When she met in a stranger a kindred mind, her conversation upon every subject poured forth, was brilliant with wit and eloquence and a gaiety of heart which gave life to all she thought and said. But the charms of society never altered her taste for domestic life; she was consistent from the beginning to the end. Though so exceedingly enjoying the intercourse of all the great minds she had known, she more enjoyed her domestic life with her nearest relations, when her spirits never flagged, and her wit and wisdom, which were never for show, were called forth by every little incident of the day. When my daughters were with Maria at Paris, they described to me the readiness with which she would return from the company of the greatest philosophers and wits of the day to superintend her young sisters' dress, or arrange some party of pleasure for them. "We often wonder what her admirers would say, after all the profound remarks and brilliant witticisms they have listened to, if they heard all her delightful nonsense with us." Much as she was gratified by her "success" in the society of her celebrated contemporaries, she never varied in her love for Home.

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Her whole life, of eighty-three years, had been an aspiration after good.

SUMMARY OF VOLUME II

1820-1821

Letters from Maria Edgeworth from Coppet, Pregny, Lausanne, Lyons, Paris, Calais, Clifton, Bowood, Easton Grey, Edgeworthstown to Miss Waller, Mrs. Edgeworth, Mrs. Ruxton, Miss Honora Edgeworth, Miss Lucy Edgeworth, Miss Ruxton.

Journey through Switzerland: Madame de Montolieu, Dumont, Duke de Broglie, M. de Stein, Pictet, Madame Necker, M. de Staël--Return to England through France: Madame de Rumford, the Delesserts, Madame de la Rochejacquelin--Attack of the _Quarterly Review_ on the _Memoirs_--Visits to Bowood and Easton Grey: Lord Lansdowne, Hallam, David Ricardo--Return to Edgeworthstown--Reading and home life.

1821-1822

Letters from Kenioge, Smethwick Grove, Wycombe Abbey, Gatcombe Park, Easton Grey, Bowood, Clifton, Winchester, The Deepdene, Frognel, Hampstead, Beechwood Park, Mardoaks to Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, Miss Lucy Edgeworth, Mrs. Ruxton, Miss Ruxton.

Visits in England--Wycombe Abbey: Lord Carrington, Madame de Staël, and Buonaparte--David Ricardo--Bowood: Lord Lansdowne, Bowles--Miss Joanna Baillie's: Brodie, Dr. Holland, Lord Grenville--Anecdotes of Lady Salisbury and Wilberforce--Le Bas, Sir James Macintosh, Dumont.

1822

Letters from London to Mrs. Edgeworth, Mrs. Ruxton.

Life in London--_Frank_--Lady Lansdowne, Lady Elizabeth Whitbread, Calcott, Mrs. Somerville--Visit to the House of Commons: Peel, Brougham, Vansittart--Mrs. Fry--Almack's--Dinners and parties: Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Holland, Miss Lydia White--Mrs. Siddons and Sheridan--Jeffrey, Hume, Herschel, Lady Byron, Randolph--Ticknor on Maria Edgeworth's conversation.

1822-1823

Letters from Edgeworthstown, Black Castle, Kinneil, Edinburgh, Callander, Inverness, Kinross, Abbotsford to Mrs. Ruxton, Mrs. O'Beirne, Miss Honora Edgeworth, Miss Lucy Edgeworth, Miss Ruxton, Mrs. Ruxton.

Return to Edgeworthstown--Literary work and reading: _Early Lessons, Harry and Lucy_--Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie--Death of Lord Londonderry--Visit to Scotland--Edinburgh: Evening at Sir Walter Scott's--Sir Walter Scott, Lady Scott, and Lockhart--A fortnight at Abbotsford.

1823-1830

Letters from Edgeworthstown, Pakenham Hall, Black Castle, Bloomfield to Mrs. and Miss Ruxton, Mrs. Bannatyne, Mrs. O'Beirne, Miss Honora Edgeworth, Mrs. Edgeworth, C.S. Edgeworth, Captain Basil Hall, Mr. Bannatyne.

Return to Ireland--Reading and letters: Mrs. Hemans, Blanco White, Dr. Holland, Walter Scott--Death of Anna Edgeworth--Death of Mrs. Barbauld--Visit of Sir Walter Scott to Edgeworthstown--Visit to Killarney with Scott and Lockhart--_Harry and Lucy_--Management of the estate--Death of Lady Scott--Visit from Sir Humphry Davy--_Vivian Grey_ and Almack's--Sydney Smith's conversation--Visit from Herschel--Mrs. Mary Sneyd settles at Edgeworthstown--Illness and recovery--General interests and life at Edgeworthstown.

1830-1831

Letters from London to Miss Ruxton, Miss Honora Edgeworth, Mrs. Edgeworth, Mrs. R. Butler.

Death of Mrs. Ruxton--Visit to London: Lord Lansdowne, Joanna Baillie, Sir Henry Holland, Southey--Talleyrand--Duchess of Wellington, Sir James Macintosh--Death of Mr. Hope--Macaulay--Visit to the Herschels: Sir Joshua Reynolds's work--Rogers, Lord Mahon--Death of the Duchess of Wellington--Scene in the House of Lords--Opera and plays.

1831-1840

Letters from Edgeworthstown, Rostrevor, Pakenham Hall, Dunmoe Cottage, Lough Glyn, Trim to Captain Basil Hall, Mrs. L. Edgeworth, Miss Ruxton, Mrs. R. Butler, Mr. Bannatyne, C.S. Edgeworth, Mr. Pakenham Edgeworth, Mrs. Stark, Miss Margaret Ruxton, Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor.

Return to Ireland--Visits in Ireland--Lockhart's _Life--Helen_--Tour in Ireland--Young Sir Walter Scott--Principles of novel-writing--General election and relations with tenants--Views on Politics--Visit of Mr. Ticknor to Edgeworthstown, and of Rev. William Sprogue--Maria becomes real owner of Edgeworthstown--Home interests--Marriage of Honora Edgeworth.

1840-1843

Letters from London, Edgeworthstown, Trim to Mrs. R. Butler, Mrs. Edgeworth, Mrs. Beaufort, Miss Margaret Ruxton, Miss Bannatyne, Mrs. Beaufort.

Visit to London: Darwin, Dr. Lushington, Macaulay--Return to Edgeworthstown: Distress in Ireland--Mrs. Hall's description of the family life at Edgeworthstown--Dangerous illness of Maria Edgeworth--Reading and literary interests: Dickens, Francis Horner--Marriage of Miss Lucy Edgeworth to Dr. Robinson.

1843-1849

Letters from London, Warfield Lodge, Collingwood, Edgeworthstown, Armagh to Mrs. R. Butler, Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Margaret Ruxton, Lady Beaufort, Mrs. S.C. Hall.

Visit to London--Sydney Smith, Sir Henry Holland, Rogers, Mrs. Drummond--Opening of the new Houses of Parliament--Visits in England--Dean Milman, Herschel--Return to Edgeworthstown--Reading and home interests--The Irish Famine--_Orlandino_--Death of Maria Edgeworth.

THE END