The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 by Maria Edgeworth

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sandra Brown Distributed Proofreaders

THE

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

MARIA EDGEWORTH

Edited By

AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE

VOL. II

MARIA EDGEWORTH

MARIA _to_ MISS WALLER.

COPPET, _Sept. 1, 1820_.

I am sure that you have heard of us, and of all we have done and seen
from Edgeworthstown as far as Berne: from thence we went to Thun: there
we took _char-à-bancs_, little low carriages, like half an Irish
jaunting car, with four wheels, and a square tarpaulin awning over our
heads. Jolting along on these vehicles, which would go over a house, I
am sure, without being overturned or without being surprised, we
went--the Swiss postillion jolting along at the same round rate up and
down, without ever looking back to see whether the carriages and
passengers follow, yet now and then turning to point to mountains,
glaciers, and cascades. The valley of Lauterbrunn is beautiful; a clear,
rushing cascady stream rushes through it: fine chestnuts, walnuts, and
sycamores scattered about, the verdure on the mountains between the
woods fresh and bright. Pointed mountains covered with snow in the midst
of every sign of flowery summer strike us with a sense of the sublime
which never grows familiar. The height of the Staubach waterfall, which
we saw early in the morning, astonished my mind, I think, more than my
eyes, looking more like thin vapour than water--more like _strings_ of
water; and I own I was disappointed, after all I had heard of it.

We went on to the valley of Grindelwald, where we saw, as we thought two
fields off, a glacier to which we wished to go; and accordingly we left
the _char-à-bancs_, and walked down the sloping field, expecting to
reach it in a few minutes, but we found it a long walk--about two miles.
To this sort of deception about distances we are continually subject,
from the clearness of the air, and from the unusual size of the objects,
for which we have no points of comparison, and no previous habits of
estimating. We were repaid for our walk, however, when we came to the
source of the Lutzen, which springs under an arch of ice in the glacier.
The river runs clear and sparkling through the valley, while over the
arch rests a mountain of ice, and beside it a valley of ice; not smooth
or uniform, but in pyramids, and arches, and blocks of immense size, and
between them clefts and ravines. The sight and the sound of the waters
rushing, and the solemn immovability of the ice, formed a sublime
contrast.

On the grass at the very foot of this glacier were some of the most
delicious wood-strawberries I ever tasted.

At Interlaken we met Sneyd [Footnote: Her half-brother, son of the third
Mrs. Edgeworth, and his wife Henrica Broadhurst.] and Henrica in a very
pleasant situation in that most beautiful country. We parted on the
banks of the lake of Brienz. On this lake we had an hour's delightful
sailing, and _put into_ a little bay and climbed up a mountain to see
the cascade of the Giesbach, by far the most beautiful I ever beheld,
and beyond all of which painting or poetry had ever given me any idea.
Indeed it is particularly difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to
give a representation of cascades which depend for effect upon the
height from which they fall, the rush of motion, the sparkling and foam
of the water in motion, and the magnitude of the surrounding objects.

After passing the lake of Brienz, we came to the far-famed valley of
Meyringen, which had been much cried up to us; but, whether from the
usual perverseness of human nature, or from being spoiled by the luxury
of cascades, valleys, and Alps we had previously seen, we were
disappointed in it, though, to do it justice, it has nine cascades.

We slept at a wooden inn, and rose at three; and, before four, mounted
on our horses, set off for the Brunig; and after having gone up La
Flegère at Chamouni, the crossing the Brunig was a small consideration.
Brava! brava!

But--something happened to me and my horse; the result being that I went
up the Brunig and down the Brunig on my two legs instead of on the
horse's four, and was not the least tired with my three hours' scramble
up and scramble down. At the little town of Sarnen we ate eggs and drank
sour wine, and Mr. Moilliet, Fanny, and Harriet remounted their horses;
Mrs. Moilliet, Emily, Susan, and I went in a _char-à-banc_ of a
different construction; not sitting sideways, but on two phaeton seats,
one behind the other, facing the horses. Such jolting, such _trimming_
from side to side; but we were not overturned, and got out at the town
of Stanzstadt, where, after seeing in the dirtiest inn's dirtiest room a
girl with a tremendous black eye, besides the two with which nature had
favoured her, we took boat again about sunset, and had a two hours'
delicious rowing across the lake of Lucerne, which I prefer to every
other I have seen--the moon full and placid on the waters, the stars
bright in the deep blue sky, the town of Lucerne shadowed before us with
lights here and there in the windows. The air became still, and the sky
suddenly clouded over; thunder was heard; bright flashes of lightning
darted from behind the mountains and across the town, making it at
intervals distinctly visible for a moment. It was dark when we landed,
and we had to pass through two or three streets, servants, guides, bag,
and baggage, groping our way; and oh, wretched mortals, went to the
wrong place, and before we could reach the right one, down poured a
waterspout of a shower on our devoted heads and backs. In five minutes,
running as hard as we could, we were wet through; and Fanny, in crossing
the street and plucking at the guide's bundle for a cloak for me, was
nearly run over, but stood it; and, all dripping, we reached our inn, Le
Cheval Blanc. An hour spent in throwing off wet clothes and putting on
dry--tea, coffee--bed--bugs, and sleep, nevertheless.

We rejoined our landau and _calèche_ at Lucerne, and proceeded in them
to Zug, where there is a famous convent or _Frauenkloster_, which
escaped being destroyed during the Revolution, because the abbess and
nuns established a school for the female children of the neighbourhood,
where they still continue to teach them to read and work: Madame Gautier
had desired us to go and see it, and to it we walked: rang at the bell,
were told that the nuns were all in the refectory, and were asked to
wait. The nuns' repast was soon finished, and one came with a very
agreeable, open countenance and fresh, brown complexion, well fed and
happy-looking, becomingly dressed in snow-white hood and pelerine and
brown gown. Bowing courteously, she by signs--for she could speak
neither French nor English--invited us to follow her, and led us through
cloister and passage to the room of the boarders; not nuns, only there
for their education. A pretty Italian girl, with corkscrew ringlets of
dark hair, rose from her pianoforte to receive us, and spoke with much
grace and self-complacency Italian-French, and accompanied by way of
interpreter our own conductress, who _motioned_ us to the sitting-room,
where nuns and pensioners were embroidering, with silk, cotton,
chenille, and beads, various pretty, ugly, and fantastical, useless
things. Luckily, none were finished at that moment, and their empty
basket saved our purses and our taste from danger or disgrace.

I had spied in the corner of the Italian interpreter's apartment a daub
of a print of the King and Queen of France taking leave of their family,
with a German inscription; and thinking the Abbé Edgeworth had a good
right to be in it, and as a kind of German notion of an Abbé appeared in
the print, and something like Edgewatz in the German words, I put my
finger on the spot, and bade the interpreter tell the nuns and the
abbess, who now appeared, that we were nearly related to the Abbé
Edgeworth, Louis XVI.'s confessor. This with some difficulty was put
into the Italian's head, and through her into the nuns', and through
them, in German, into the abbess' superior head. I heard a mistake in
the first repetition, which ran, no doubt, through all the editions,
viz. that we were _proches parents_, not to the King's confessor, but to
the King! The nuns opened the whites of their eyes, and smiled regularly
in succession as the bright idea reached them and the abbess--a
good-looking soul, evidently of superior birth and breeding to the rest,
all gracious and courteous in demeanour to the strangers.

A thought struck me--or, as Mr. Barrett of Navan expressed it, "I took a
notion, ma'am"--that Fanny would look well in a nun's dress; and boldly
I went to work with my interpreter, who thought the request at first too
bold to make; but I forced it through to nun the first, who backed and
consulted nun the second, who at my instigation referred in the last
appeal to the abbess, who, in her supreme good-nature, smiled, and
pointed upstairs; and straight our two nuns carried Fanny and me off
with them up stairs and stairs, and through passages and passages, to a
little nun's room--I mean a nun's little room--nice with flowers and
scraps of relics and religious prints. The nuns ran to a press in the
wall, and took out ever so many plaited coifs and bands, and examined
them all carefully as birthnight beauty would have done, to fix upon one
which was most becoming. Nun the second ran for the rest of the
habiliments, and I the while disrobed Fanny of her worldly sprigged
cambric muslin and straw hat, which, by the bye, nun the second eyed
with a fond admiration which proved she had not quite forgotten this
world's conveniences. The eagerness with which they dressed Fanny, the
care with which they adjusted the frontlet, and tucked in the ringlets,
and placed the coif on her head, and pulled it down to exactly the right
becoming sit, was exceedingly amusing. No coquette dressing for Almack's
could have shown more fastidious nicety, or expressed more joy and
delight at the toilette's triumphant success. They exclaimed in German,
and lifted up hands and eyes in admiration of Fanny's beautiful
appearance in nun's attire. The universal language of action and the no
less universal language of flattery was not lost upon me: I really loved
these nuns, and thought of my Aunt Ruxton's nuns, who were so good to
her. Down corridors and stairs we now led our novice, and the nuns
showed her how to hold her hands tucked into her sleeves, and asked her
name; and having learned it was Fanny, Frances, Sister Frances, were
again overjoyed, because one of them was named Frances, the other was
Agnes. When, between Sister Agnes and Sister Frances the first, Sister
Frances the second entered the room, where we had left the abbess, Mrs.
Moilliet, Emily, and Susan, they did not know Fanny in the least, and
Harriet declared that, at the first moment, even she did not know her.
Mrs. Moilliet told me she said to herself, "What a very graceful nun is
coming now!"

After all had gathered round, and laughed, and admired, the abbess
signified to me, through our interpreter, that we could do no less than
leave her in the convent with them, and grew so mighty fond of Fanny,
that I was in as great a hurry to get her nun's dress off as I had been
to get it on; and when I had disrobed her, I could not think of a single
thing to give the poor nuns, having no pockets, and my bag left in the
carriage! At last, feeling all over myself, I twitched my little gold
earrings out of my ears, and gave one, and Fanny gave the other, to the
two nuns; and Sister Frances and Sister Agnes fell on their knees to
pray for and thank us.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

PREGNY, _Sept. 6, 1820_.

The account of the loss of the three guides at Chamouni is, alas! too
true: three perished by stepping into the new-fallen snow which covered
the crevasses; one was Joseph Carrier, who was Harriet's guide. Mrs.
Marcet has just told us that, at a breakfast given by M. Prevost to M.
Arago, and many scientific and literary people, a few days after the
accident, parties ran high on this as on all affairs: some said it was
all M. Hamel's fault; some, that it was all the guides' own fault. One
said he wished one of the English gentlemen who was of the party was
present, for then they should know the truth. At this moment the servant
announced a stranger, "Monsieur Rumford," the name sounded like as the
man pronounced it, and they thought it was Count Rumford come to life.
M. Prevost went out and returned with Mr. Dornford, one of the
Englishmen who had been of Dr. Hamel's party, who came, he said, to beg
permission to state the plain facts, as he heard they had been told to
Dr. Hamel's disadvantage. He, Dr. Hamel, Mr. Henderson, and M. Lelleque,
a French naturalist, set out: the guides had not dissuaded them from
attempting to go up Mont Blanc--only advised them to wait till a
threatening cloud had passed. When it was gone, they all set out in high
spirits; the guides cutting holes in the snow for their feet. This it is
supposed loosened the snow newly fallen, and a quantity poured down over
their heads. Mr. Dornford had pushed on before the guides; he shook off
the snow as it fell, and felt no apprehension: on the contrary, he
laughed as he _pawed_ it away, and was making his way on, when he heard
a cry from his companions, and looking back he saw some of them
struggling in the snow. He helped to extricate them, saw a point moving
in the snow, went to it, and pulled out Marie Coutay, one of the guides:
he was quite purple, but recovered in the air. Looked round--two guides
were missing: looked for them in vain, but saw a deep ravine covered
with fresh snow, into which they must have fallen.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON. LAUSANNE, _Sept 14, 1820_.

Ages ago I promised myself the pleasure of dating a letter from Lausanne
to my dear aunt, and now that I am at the place of which I have so often
heard her speak, which I have so often wished to see, I can hardly
believe it is not a dream. A fortnight ago we were here, returning from
our tour through les Petits Cantons; but at that time we could not enjoy
anything, as we had heard from Sneyd, whom we met at Interlaken, of
Lucy's [Footnote: Youngest daughter of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth.]
terrible illness. What a comfort to my mother to think that she was
saved by your Sophy's steadiness and presence of mind, and by Lovell's
decision and Crampton's skill and kindness!

Yesterday we began our tour round the Lake of Geneva--Dumont, Fanny,
Harriet, and I--in one of the carriages of the country, a mixture of a
sociable and an Irish jingle, with some resemblance to a hearse, from a
covered top on iron poles, which keeps off the sun. It was late when we
arrived here, and so dark, with only a few lamps strung across the
street here and there, we could scarcely see the forms of the great
black horses scrambling and struggling up the almost perpendicular
streets. How could you ever have borne it, my dear aunt? You must have
been in perpetual fear of your life! Lord Bellamont's description of the
county of Cavan--all acclivity and declivity, without any intervention
of horizontality--I am sure applies to Lausanne. I am sure travelled
horses from all parts of the world say to each other when they meet in
the stable, "Were you ever at Lausanne? Don't you hate Lausanne? How
could men build a town in such a place? What asses! And how provoking,
while we are breaking our backs, to hear them talking of picturesque
beauty! I should like to see how they would look if we let them slip,
and roll down these picturesque situations!"

Lausanne is, nevertheless, so full that we could scarcely find room; and
after Dumont and his servant had gone back and forward to Le Faucon, the
Lion d'or, Les Balances, etc. etc., all full to the garrets, we were
thankful at finding ourselves in the worst inn's worst room, where,
however, the beds were clean and good. We are not grumblers, so we drank
coffee and were all very happy; and while the rooms were preparing
Dumont read to us a pretty little French piece, _Le faux Savant!_

_Sept. 15_.

Our first object this morning was to see Madame de Montolieu, the author
of _Caroline de Lichfield_, to whom I had a letter of introduction. She
was not at Lausanne, we were told, but at her country house, Bussigny,
about a league and a half from the town. We had a delicious fine
morning, and through romantic lanes and up and down hills, till we found
ourselves in the middle of a ploughed field, when the coachman's pride
of ignorance had to give up, and he had to beg his way to Bussigny, a
village of scattered Swiss cottages high upon rocks, with far-spreading
prospects below. In the court of the house which we were told was Madame
de Montolieu's we saw a lady, of a tall, upright, active-looking figure,
with much the appearance of a gentlewoman; but we could not think that
this was Madame de Montolieu, because for the last half-hour Dumont,
impatient at our losing our way, had been saying she must be too old to
receive us. She was very old thirty years ago; she must be
_quatre-vingt_, at least: at last it came to _quatre-vingt-dix_. This
lady did not look above fifty. She came up to the carriage as it
stopped, and asked whom we wished to see. The moment I saw her eyes, I
knew it was Madame de Montolieu, and stooping down from the open
carriage I put into her hand the note of introduction and our card. She
never opened the note, but the instant her eye had glanced upon the
card, she repeated the name with a voice of joyful welcome. I jumped out
of the carriage, and she embraced me so cordially, and received my
sisters so kindly, and M. Dumont so politely, that we were all at ease
and acquainted and delighted before we were half-way upstairs. While she
went into the ante-chamber for a basket of peaches, I had time to look
at the prints hung in the little drawing-room: they had struck me the
moment we came in as scenes from _Caroline de Lichfield_. Indifferent,
old-fashioned, provoking figures, Caroline and Count Walstein in the
fashions of thirty years ago.

When Madame de Montolieu returned, she bade me not look at them; "but I
will tell you how they came to be here." They had been given to her by
Gibbon: he was the person who published _Caroline de Lichfield_. She had
written it for the entertainment of an aunt who was ill: a German story
of three or four pages gave her the first idea of it. "I never could
invent: give me a hint, and I can go on and supply the details and the
characters." Just when _Caroline de Lichfield_ was finished, Gibbon
became acquainted with her aunt, who showed it to him: he seized upon
the MS., and said it must be published. It ran in a few months through
several editions; and just when it was in its first vogue, Gibbon
happened to be in London, saw these prints, and brought them over to
her, telling her he had brought her a present of prints from London, but
that he would only give them to her on condition that she would promise
to hang them, and let them always hang, in her drawing-room. After many
vain efforts to find out what manner of things they were, Gibbon and
curiosity prevailed; she promised, and there they hang.

She must have been a beautiful woman: she told me she is seventy: fine
dark, enthusiastic eyes, a quickly varying countenance, full of life,
and with all the warmth of heart and imagination which is thought to
belong only to youth.

We went into a wooden gallery reaching from one side of the house to the
other, at one end of which was a table, where she had been writing when
we arrived. We often took leave, but were loth to depart. Dumont luckily
asked if she could direct us to a fine old chateau in the neighbourhood,
which we had been told was particularly well worth seeing--Viernon. "It
is my brother's," she said, and she would go with us and show it. The
carriage was sent round to the high road, and we went by a walk along a
river, romantically beautiful. Just as we came to a cascade and a wooden
bridge, a little pug dog came running down, and the Baron and Madame de
Polier appeared. Madame de Montolieu ran on to her brother, and
explained who we were. Madame is an Englishwoman, and, to my surprise, I
found she was niece to my father's old friend, Mr. Mundy of Markeaton.
We were all very sorry to part with Madame de Montolieu; however, we
returned to Lausanne, and Dumont in the evening read out _Le
Somnambule_--very laughable when so well read.

PREGNY, _Sept. 20_.

Next day beautiful drive to Vevay, as you know. After visiting Chillon,
where Lord Byron's name and _coat of arms_ are cut upon Bonnivar's
pillar, I read the poem again, and think it most sublime and pathetic.
How can that man have perverted so much feeling as was originally given
to him!

Have you been at St. Maurice? If you have not, I cannot give you an idea
of the surprise and delight we felt at the first sight of the view going
down through the archway! But what a miserable town! After Fanny had
sketched from the window of the inn a group of children, we finished our
evening by hearing Dumont read, incomparably well, _Les Chateaux
d'Espagne_. In the night we were awakened by the most horrible female
voice, singing, or rather screeching, in the passage--the voice of a
person having a _goître_, and either mad or drunk. There had been a
marriage of country people in the house, and this lady had drunk a
little too much. We heard Dumont's door open, and he silenced or drove
her away.

Next morning we went, on part of the Simplon route which Buonaparte
made, to St. Gingulph, where we spent some hours on the Lake. Dumont
told us he had been there with Rogers, who was so delighted with its
beauty, that instead of one he spent six days there.

Not having met the Moilliets as expected at St. Maurice, we became very
anxious about them; but upon our arrival at Pregny next day, found them
all very quietly there. Mrs. Moilliet's not being very well kept them at
home. Nothing can be kinder than they are to us.

We dined two days after our return to Pregny at Coppet: the Duke and
Duchess de Broglie are now there, and we met M. de Stein, [Footnote:
Carl, Baron Stein, the Minister of Frederick William IV. of Prussia.] a
great diplomatist, and M, Pictet Deodati, of whom Madame de Staël said,
if one could take hold of Pictet Deodati's neckcloth, and give him one
good shaking, what a number of good things would come out!

MALAGNY, DR. MARCET'S, _Sept_.

We came here last Friday, and have spent our time most happily with our
excellent friend Mrs. Marcet. His children are all so fond of Dr.
Marcet, we see that he is their companion and friend. They have all been
happily busy in making a paper fire-balloon, sixteen feet in diameter,
and thirty feet high. A large company were invited to see it mount. It
was a fine evening. The balloon was filled on the green before the
house. The lawn slopes down to the lake, and opposite to it magnificent
Mont Blanc, the setting sun shining on its summit. After some
heart-beatings about a hole in the top of the balloon, through which the
smoke was seen to issue--an evil omen--it went up successfully. The sun
had set, but we saw its reflection beautifully on one side of the
balloon, so that it looked like a globe half ice, half fire, or half
moon, half sun, self-suspended in the air. It went up exactly a mile. I
say exactly, because Pictet measured the height by an instrument of a
new invention, which I will describe when we meet. The air here is so
clear, that at this height we saw it distinctly.

M. Pictet de Rochemont, brother to our old friend, has taken most kind
pains to translate the best passages from my father's _Memoirs_ for the
_Bibliothèque Universelle_. We were yesterday at his house with a large
party, and met Madame Necker de Saussure--much more agreeable than her
book. Her manner and figure reminded us of our beloved Mrs. Moutray: she
is deaf, too, and she has the same resignation, free from suspicion, in
her expression when she is not speaking, and the same gracious attention
to the person who speaks to her.

CHATEAU DE COPPET, _Sept. 28_,

8 A.M.

We came here yesterday, and here we are in the very apartments occupied
by M. Necker, opening into what is now the library, but what was once
that theatre on which Madame de Staël used to act her own _Corinne_.
Yesterday evening, when Madame de Broglie had placed me next the oldest
friend of the family, M. de Bonstettin, he whispered to me, "You are now
in the exact spot, in the very chair where Madame de Staël used to sit!"
Her friends were excessively attached to her. This old man talked of her
with tears in his eyes, and with all the sudden change of countenance
and twitchings of the muscles which mark strong, uncontrollable feeling.

There is something inexpressibly melancholy, awful, in this house, in
these rooms, where the thought continually recurs, Here Genius _was!_
here _was_ Ambition, Love! all the great struggles of the passions; here
was Madame de Staël! The respect paid to her memory by her son and
daughter, and by M. de Broglie, is touching. The little Rocca, seven
years old, is an odd, cold, prudent, old-man sort of a child, as unlike
as possible to the son you would have expected from such parents. M.
Rocca, brother to the boy's father, is here: handsome, but I know no
more. M. Sismondi and his wife dined here, and three Saladins, father,
mother, and daughter. M. de Staël has promised to show to me Gibbon's
love-letters to his grandmother, ending regularly with "Je suis,
mademoiselle, avec les sentimens qui font le désespoir de ma vie," etc.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23