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

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We left Chevening, and can never forget it, and drove through the wealds
and the charts, called, as Mr. Jones tells me, from the charters, and
see a chapel built by Porteus to civilise some of the wicked ones of the
wealds or wilds, and Ireton's house, [Footnote: Groombridge Place.]
where some say Cromwell lived, now belonging to Perkins the brewer. Then
"see to the right that rich green field, where King Henry VIII. used to
stop and wind his horn, that people might gather and drag himself and
suite through the slough," and it was near eight before we got to town,
and Lestock waiting dinner with the patience of Job. He, Lestock, not
Job, is a delightful person to live with, never annoyed about hours or
trifles of that kind.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_April 30, 1831_.

On Monday last I drove to Apsley House, without the slightest suspicion
that the Duchess had been worse than when I had last seen her. When I
saw the gate only just opened enough to let out the porter's head, and
saw Smith parleying with him, nothing occurred to me but that the man
doubted whether I was a person who ought to be admitted; so I put out my
card, when Smith, returning, said, "Ma'am, the _Duchess of Wellington
died on Saturday morning!_"

The good-natured porter, seeing that I was "really a friend," as he
said, went into the house at my request, to ask if I could see her maid;
and after a few minutes the gates opened softly, and I went into that
melancholy house, into that great, silent hall: window-shutters closed:
not a creature to be seen or heard.

At last a man-servant appeared, and as I moved towards the side of the
house where I had formerly been--"Not that way, ma'am; walk in here, if
you please."

Then came, in black, that maid, of whose attachment the Duchess had, the
last time I saw her, spoken so highly and truly, as I now saw by the
first look and words. "Too true, ma'am--_she_ is gone from us! her Grace
died on Saturday."

"Was the Duke in town?"

"Yes, ma'am, BESIDE HER."

Not a word more, but I was glad to have that certain. Lord Charles had
arrived in time; not Lord Douro. The Duchess had remained much as I last
saw her on the sofa for a fortnight; then confined to her bed some days,
but then seemed much better; had been up again, and out in that room and
on that sofa, as when we heard her conversing so charmingly. They had no
apprehension of her danger, nor had she herself till Friday, when she
was seized with violent pain, and died on Saturday morning, "calm and
resigned."

The poor maid could hardly speak. She went in and brought me a lock of
her mistress's hair, silver gray, all but a few light brown, that just
recalled the beautiful Kitty Pakenham!

So ended that sweet, innocent--shall we say happy, or unhappy life?
Happy, I should think, _through all_; happy in her good feelings and
good conscience, and warm affections, still LOVING on! Happy in her
faith, her hope, and her charity!

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

LONDON, _May 6, 1831_.

One of our farewell visits yesterday was to Mrs. Lushington; and when we
had talked our fill about our brother Pakenham, we went to politics, of
which every head in London is fuller than it can hold. Lord Suffield
described the scene in the House of Lords [Footnote: On the opening of
Parliament, when the King was to propose the bringing in of the Reform
Bill.] as more extraordinary than could have been imagined or believed.
One lord held down by force, and one bawling at the top of his voice,
even when the door opened, and the King appeared as his lordship
pronounced the word "RUIN!"

Ruin did not seize the King, however, nor was he in the least affected
by the uproar. He walked calmly on.

"I kept my eye upon him," Lord Suffield said; "I looked at his knees,
they did not tremble in the least. I am sure I could not have walked so
firmly; I do not believe another man present could have been so calm."

The King quietly took out his paper, felt for his spectacles, put them
on composedly, and read with a firm voice. They say nothing was ever
like the confusion and violence since the time of Charles I. and
Cromwell.

The day before yesterday we did a prodigious deal. Mr. Drummond came at
ten o'clock, by appointment, to take us to the Mint, to see the double
printing press; and we saw everything, from the casting the types to the
drying the sheet; and then to the India House. There was some little
stop while Pakenham's card, with a pencil message to Dr. Wilkins, was
sent up. While this was doing, a superb mock-majesty man, in scarlet
cloak and cocked hat, bedizened with gold, motioned us away. "Coachman,
drive on; no carriage can stand before the India House--that's the
rule."

Dr. Wilkins came out of his comfortable den to receive us, laid down his
book and spectacles, and showed us everything. The strangest thing we
saw was a toy of Tippoo Sahib's, worthy of a despot--an English soldier,
as large as life, in his uniform, hat, and everything, painted and
varnished, lying at full length, and a furious tiger over him; a handle,
invisible at a distance, in his ribs, which, when turned by the slave,
produced sounds like the growling of the tiger and the groans of the
man!

We had a very pleasant day at Epping. Mrs. Napier went with us; I inside
with her, Fanny on the barouche-seat with Pakenham, and Lestock behind
with Sneyd. The place is so much improved! I saw Fanny's horse Baronet:
very pretty.

_2 o'clock, Luncheon._

Pakenham is eating his last bit of gooseberry pie: enter Sneyd:
boxes--hammering--dreadful notes of preparation. Pakenham yesterday wore
the trefoil pin with his aunt's hair, and the sleeve-buttons with his
mother's and sister's hair; and I have added a locket to hang to his
watch-chain, with a bit, very scarce, of my own hair. The wind is fair:
we shall hear from him from Deal.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_May 7, 1831_.

I wrote to Harriet yesterday all about Pakenham to the moment he left
this house with Sneyd to join Lestock in the City, and go on to
Gravesend.

Half an hour after we had parted from Pakenham, and before we had
recovered sense, came a great rap at the door. "Will you see anybody,
ma'am?" I was going to say, "No, nobody," but I bid Smith ask the name,
when behind him, as I spoke, enter Mrs. Lushington. "I have forced my
way up--forgive me, it is for Pakenham; I hope I am not too late; I've
brought him _good_ letters from Mrs. Charles Lushington."

Comprehending instantly the value of the letters, and our carriage being
most luckily at the door, into it Fanny and I got, and drove as hard as
we could down to the dock, to the very place where they were to take the
Gravesend boat. You may imagine the anxiety we were in to be in time,
boat waiting for no one; and then the stoppages of odious carts and
hackney coaches in the City: I do not believe we spoke three words to
each other all that long way. At last, when within a few minutes of the
end of our time, we were encompassed with carts, drays, and omnibuses,
in an impenetrable line seemingly before us. Fanny sent Smith on foot
with the letters and a pencil note. We got on wonderfully, our coachman
being really an angel. We reached the wharf. "Is the Gravesend boat
gone?" "No, ma'am, not this half-hour; half after four, instead of four,
to-day."

We took breath, but were still anxious, watching each with head out on
our own side; for Smith had not appeared, and Lestock, Sneyd, and
Pakenham had not arrived: great fear of missing them and the letters in
the hurly-burly of packages, and packers, and passengers, and sailors,
and _orderers_, and hackney coaches, and coachmen, and boatmen, men,
women, and children swarming and bawling.

But at last Smith and Lestock appeared together, and the letters got
into Pakenham's hand: he and Sneyd had gone into the boat, so we saw no
more of them; but Lestock sent us off on a new hurry-skurry for pistols,
ordered but not brought. To the Minerva counting-house we drove, to send
the pistols by some boatswain there: got to counting-house: "Boatswain
gone?" "No, ma'am, not yet," said the dear, smiling clerk. So all was
right, and Pakenham had his pistols.

SALDEN HOUSE, MRS. CARR'S,

_June 6, 1831_.

My last days in London crowned the whole in all that was entertaining,
curious, gratifying, and delightful to head and heart. I am writing
while Isabella Carr is reading out _Destiny_, and very well she reads
the Scotch; so you may think I cannot enter into details of the past at
present, but I must just note--

Lady Elizabeth Whitbread and four Lady Harleys.

Opera with Lady Guilford and two daughters: _Medea_, Pasta: thrilling
shiver, gliding sideways to her children, and sudden retreat.

French play: Leontine Fay in _Une Faute_--the most admirable actress I
ever saw, and in the most touching piece. Three young men--Mr.
Whitbread, Major Keppel, and Lord Mahon--separately told me the
impression made on them by this actress was such that they could not
sleep afterwards! I had no trial how this would be with me, because we
went off from the playhouse to Sir James South's, to see the occultation
of Jupiter's satellites: that was indeed a sublime reality, and no
wonder we were broad awake till three o'clock.

Next morning St. Paul's: moral sublime. I sat next Rammohun Roy, and
heard all he said. One curious inquiry he made; "Why are the boys set
_above_ the girls?" Sermon by the Bishop of Nova Scotia: Judge
Haliburton sat between Fanny and me. Luncheon at the Bishop of
Llandaff's: forty people. Came home: packed up. Mr. Creed at dinner, and
this last day delightful.

_To_ CAPTAIN BASIL HALL.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _August 14, 1831_.

My last visit to universal London confirms to my own feelings your
eulogium. I never was so happy there in my life, because I had besides
all the external pleasures, the solid satisfaction of a home there, and
domestic pleasures, without which I should soon grow a-weary of the
world, and wish the business of the town were done. I should be very
sorry if I were told this minute that I was never to see London again,
and yet I am wondrous contented and happy at home. I hope you will come
and see some time whether I am only making believe or telling true.

You say I must never say a discouraging word to you, because you are so
easily discouraged: for shame! What is that but saying, "Flatter me"?
Now flattery can never do good; twice cursed in the giving and the
receiving, it ought to be. Instead of flattering I will give you this
wholesome caution: in your new volumes do not weaken the effect by
giving too much of a good thing; do not be lengthy; cut well before you
go to press, and then the rest will live all the better. With your
facility, this cannot cost you much.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

ROSTREVOR, [Footnote: Where the Miss Ruxtons were now living.]

_Oct. 2, 1831_.

Lestock was gratified by my joining him at Armagh. Mr. Allott was most
hospitable. We walked to the cathedral, and saw views of great extent
and beauty, and heard learned disquisitions about architecture, and a
curious anecdote in support of a favourite theory of his, that small
stones _grouted_ together, with lime and water put in hot, defies old
Time. Great alarm was excited some time ago at Winchester Cathedral: the
principal pillars seemed to be giving way, out of the perpendicular, and
_bulged_. They fell to work _shoring_ and propping; but, in spite of
all, the pillars still seemed to be giving way more and more, and they
feared the whole would come down. Rennie was sent for, but Rennie was
ill, and died. At last an architect looked at the pillars, picked at
them, took off a facing of stone, and found, what he had suspected, that
it was only this facing that had given way and bulged, and that the
inside was a solid pillar of masonry,--small stones grouted together so
firmly that the cement was as hard as the stone.

Dr. and Mrs. Robinson came in the evening: his conversation is
admirable; such an affluence of ideas, so full of genius and master
thoughts. He gave me an excellent disquisition on the effect which
transcendental mathematics produces on the mind, and traced up the
history of mathematics from Euclid, appealing to diagrams and resting on
images, to that higher sort where they are put out of the question,
where we reason by symbols as in algebra, and work on in the dark till
they get to the light, or till the light comes out of the dark--sure
that it will come out. He went over Newton, and on through the history
of modern times--Brinkley, Lagrange, Hamilton--just giving to me,
ignorant, a notion of what each had done.

Mrs. O'Beirne--dear, kind soul!--would accompany me on the jaunting-car
all the way from Newry to Rostrevor, and I am very glad she did; and as
the day was fine and the tide in, I thought it would be pleasant on that
beautiful road; and so it would have been, but for the droves of
cows--Oh, those weary cows with the longest horns!--and if ever I
laughed at you for being afraid of cows, you may have your revenge now.
Every quarter of a mile, at least, came a tangled mass of these brutes,
and their fright made them more terrible, for they knew no more what
they were doing than I did myself; and there I was sitting at their
mercy, and the horn of one or t'other continually within an inch of my
eye, my mouth, or my breast, and no retreat; and they might any moment
stick me on the top of one of these horns, and toss me with one jerk
into the sea! Mrs. O'Beirne kept telling me she was used to it, and that
nothing ever happened; but by the time I reached Rostrevor I was as poor
a worn-out rag as ever you saw.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 22, 1831._

Francis was married on the 19th to Rosa Florentina Eroles; Sneyd, Fanny,
and Lestock were present. The bride was dressed in a plain white muslin,
with a mantilla lace veil of her own work on her head, without any hat,
after the fashion of her own country, with a small wreath of silver
flowers in her dark hair. Her sister was dressed English fashion, in a
bonnet. Both Sneyd and Fanny say that nothing could appear more
gentlemanlike, gentle, amiable, and happy than the bridegroom.

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 20, 1832_.

Can you conceive yourself to be an old lamp at the point of extinction,
and dreading the smell you would make at going out, and the execrations
which in your dying flickerings you might hear? And then you can
conceive the sudden starting up again of the flame, when fresh oil is
poured into the lamp. And can you conceive what that poor lamp would
feel returning to light and life? So felt I when I had read your letter
on reading what I sent to you of _Helen_. You have given me new life and
spirit to go on with her. I would have gone on from principle, and the
desire to do what my father advised--to finish whatever I began; but now
I feel all the difference between working for a dead or a live horse.

My auriculas are superb, and my peony tree has eighteen full-swelled
buds: it will be in glory by the time Sophy and Mag arrive.

_To_ HER SISTER HARRIET--MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN. _Aug. 1, 1832_.

It is impossible to tell you how much I miss you. Never, except at my
Aunt Ruxton's, did I ever pass my time away from home so entirely to my
own enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured the cheerful sky.

We are reading _Eugene Aram_; and almost all I have heard I think
affected as to language, and not natural as to character. I am sure the
real story and trial are much more interesting.

_Aug. 21_.

Perhaps you think I am at Lady Hartland's at this moment, poor
ignorants, as you are! You must know that I was so unwell on Friday, the
morning of the day we were to have gone there, that my poor mother was
obliged to send James in the rain (poor James!) to put off till Monday;
so Lord and Lady Hartland were very sorry and very glad, and sent us
divine peaches.

Sir James Calendar Campbell's _Memoirs_ are ill-written--all
higgledy-piggledy, facts and anecdotes, some without heads, and some
without tails; great cry and little wool, still, some of the wool is
good; and curious facts thrown out, of which he does not know the value,
and other things he values that have no value in nature.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

PAKENHAM HALL, _Sept. 19, 1832_.

We came here yesterday to meet Caroline Hamilton--dear Caroline
Hamilton, and her sensible, agreeable husband. She is always the same,
and the sight of her affectionate, open, lively countenance does one's
heart good. Lord Longford quite well, and Lord Longford for ever: the
children beautiful.

FIVE P.M.

We have been walking and driving all morning, and seeing all that Lady
Longford has done in beautifying the place and employing the people. I
never saw, in England or Ireland, such beautiful gardens--the most
beautiful American garden my eyes ever beheld. She took advantage of a
group of superb old chestnut-trees, with oak and ash for a background,
which had never been noticed in that _terra incognita_; now it is a
fairy land, embowered round with evergreens.

To-morrow Hercules and Mrs. Pakenham come, with all their children--a
party of thirteen!

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Oct. 9, 1832_.

I send you one dozen out of two dozen ranunculus roots, which good,
kind, dying Lady Pakenham sent to me, with a note as fresh in feeling as
youth could dictate.

_To_ MR. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 12, 1832_.

The death of Sir Walter Scott has filled us all, as his private friends
and admirers, with sorrow. I do not mean that we could have wished the
prolongation of his life such as it had been for the last months; quite
the contrary: but we feel poignant anguish from the thought that such a
life as his was prematurely shortened--that such faculties, such a
genius, such as is granted but once in an age, once in many ages, should
have been extinguished of its light, of its power to enlighten and
vivify the world, long before its natural term for setting! Whatever the
errors may have been, oh, what have been the unremitted, generous, alas!
overstrained exertions of that noble nature!

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 15, 1832_.

Thank you, I am quite well. My only _complaint_ is that I never can do
any day as much as I intended, and am always as much hurried by the
dressing-bell as I am at this instant.

Lord Longford and Lord Silchester called here to-day on their way back
from Longford and Castle Forbes; they sat till late; very agreeable.
When I congratulated Lord Longford on having done so much at Pakenham
Hall, and upon having still something to do, he answered, "Oh yes, I
never was intended for a finished gentleman!"

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 28, 1832_.

I send Mr. Lockhart's letter on the subscription for Abbotsford; it does
him honour. I combated, however, his feelings with all the feelings and
reasons I have on the opposite side--that it is a national tribute,
honourable, not degrading. I refused to give him Scott's letters for
publication, and very painful it was to me to refuse him, at present,
anything he asked; but principle and consistency, painful or not,
required it, besides my own feelings. I could not bear to publish Sir
Walter's praises of myself, and affectionate expressions and private
sentiments. I did send one letter to Mr. Lockhart, exemplifying what I
mean--the beautiful letter on his changing fortunes. As to the
subscription, all depends on whether the quantity of good produced will
balance the pain to the family. It would gratify me to give the £100 I
set apart for the purpose, but then comes the question, with or without
my name? If with, there is staring me in the face OSTENTATION. If
without--set down as from an "Unknown Friend"--AFFECTATION.

Crampton said my name would be useful, and so I suppose I should do what
would best serve the cause, and put out of the question all
consideration of what may be thought of myself.

* * * * *

Miss Edge worth's novel of _Helen_, begun in 1830, was finished in the
summer of 1833, and read for family criticism, before being sent to the
press.

* * * * *

C.S. EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. C.S. EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 27, 1833_.

After breakfast yesterday I had a stroll with Mrs. Edgeworth through
Maria's flower-garden. I wish you could see her peony tree: it is in the
very perfection of bloom, as indeed everything is here. After luncheon
dinner, the pony-carriage came round, but was refused by all: however,
as I was putting in execution my long-formed project of getting a ladder
and making the ladies go up into the sycamore-tree with me, we drove
that far. I fixed the ladder: I went up, and Fanny, Harriet, and Honora,
with a little hesitation, followed. They were all delighted with this
airy parlour, lined with the softest, thickest moss; natural seats with
backs, a delightful peep of the house, gay parterres and groves. It was
amusing, Mrs. Edgeworth's and Maria's surprise when called to from
above, as they passed in the carriage. Then we drove round Francis's new
walk through the Horse Park fields: beautiful. Then the ladies flocked
to their flower-beds, and I was accompanied by one or two in my rambles,
speaking to old workmen, and bribing new to banish the sparrows. After
tea much talking, and a little reading; Harriet read out a new story by
Mr. Brittain, who wrote _Hyacinth O'Gara_, and whom I knew at college.

This morning was everything that was exquisite, and I have since
breakfast had the gardener and heaps of workmen, and have been sawing
beech-branches, to my great satisfaction and the approval of others; and
in criticism I have found all agree with me, for _Helen_ is begun, and
at eleven we meet in the library; and Harriet has read aloud four
chapters. It is altogether in Maria's best style; and I think the public
will like it as hers, the return to an old friend.

_31st_.

I am sure you would like the cheerful fusion of this home party: each
star is worthy of separate observation for its serenity, brilliancy, or
magnitude; but it is as a constellation they claim most regard, linked
together by strong attachment, and moving in harmony through their
useful course. The herons sail about and multiply, the rookery is
banished, the reign of tulips now almost o'er, and peonies of many bells
are taking their place.

I am a stranger to any book but _Helen_, scarcely looking at the
newspaper, which Mr. Butler devours. Harriet has gone in the
pony-carriage for Molly, and she is to be driven by Francis's walk and
Maria's garden.

_June 1_.

Aunt Mary's [Footnote: Mrs. Mary Sneyd.] interest in _Helen_ is
delightful. Never did the whole family appear to more advantage; the
accordance of opinion, yet cheerfulness of discussion, is charming.

When the evening reading of _Helen_ was finished, Harriet and I walked
round the lawn; the owls shrieking and flitting by in pursuit of bats:
clouds in endless varieties in the unsettled heavens. The library, as we
looked in at it through the windows, with all its walls and pictures
lighted up by the lamps, looked beautiful. I thought how my father would
have been touched to look in as we did on his assembled family.

MARIA _to_ M. PAKENHAM EDGEWORTH, ESQ.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN,

_Valentine's Day, 1834_.

The herons this day (according to their custom as Sophy tells me) sat
all in a row in the horse park in solemn deliberation upon their own
affairs: the opening of their budget I suppose. They have much upon
their hands this session, and there must be a battle soon, on which the
fate of the empire must depend; magpies and scarecrows abound, and such
clouds of starlings darkened the air for many minutes opposite the
library window, settling at last upon the three great beech trees, that
Sophy and I would have given a crown imperial you had been by, dear
Pakenham, to see them.

You ended your Journal and the announcement of your appointment to
Amballa with exulting in the new kingdoms of flowers you would have to
subdue, and with the hope that your mother would write to Lady Pakenham
for her delightful letter to her son. You will have heard long before
this reaches you, my dear, that Lady Pakenham is no more; she died last
autumn. I wish that this news could have reached that kind heart of
hers. Honora and I went the very day we received your journal to
Coolure, to thank Admiral Pakenham; he met us on the steps in a tapestry
nightcap. He has grown very old, and has had several strokes of palsy,
but none have touched his heart. When Honora read to him the whole
passage out of your journal and your own warm expressions of pleasure
and gratitude, life and joy lighted in his dear old eyes. Honora only
changed the words, "dear Lady Pakenham" into the "dear Pakenhams of
Coolure." He asked, "Who wrote?" and looked very earnestly in my eyes. I
was afraid to say Lady Pakenham, and I answered, "You know," and pressed
his hand. He did know, passed his hand over his eyes and said, "Like
her: she was a good woman."

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