One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving in good company,
in all senses of the word. Her old friend Lord Henry Petty, now Lord
Lansdowne, was still her friend and full of kindness. Outside the house
spread a green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasant
and delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel Romilly was
there, of whom she speaks with affectionate admiration, as she does of
her kind host and hostess. 'I much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's
happiness with her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivated
society all united--in short, everything that the most reasonable or
unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable and desirous to make others
happy.'
Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see things as she does
is very remarkable in all these letters; with a little imagination one
could almost feel as if one might be able to travel back into the
pleasant society in which she lived. When she goes abroad soon after
with her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so nearly came
off in her arms, and Harriet, who have both grown up by this time
to be pretty and elegant young ladies), the sisters are made welcome
everywhere. In Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forward
to receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses soeurs,' as they used
to be announced. Most of their old friends were there still; only the
children had grown up and were now new friends to be greeted. It is a
confusion of names in visionary succession, comprising English people no
less than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure hand and true
pen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a great painter, where whole
pictures are indicated in a few just lines. Here is a peep at the
Abbaye aux Bois in 1820:--
We went to Madame Récamier in her convent, l'Abbaye aux Bois, up
seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. Elegant room; she as
elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden,
Madame de Boigne, a charming woman, and Madame la Maréchale
de ----, a battered beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in
vain to pass as a wit.... Madame Récamier has no more taken the
veil than I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite
beautiful; she dresses herself and her little room with elegant
simplicity, and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and
respectable.
One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last refrain of former
triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above all
the poor Maréchale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn
the page, we find another picture from these not long past days:--
Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve before the
company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful conversation
with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless white muslin and
little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he lay on the sofa;
as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of herself as my
mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the most distinguished
of that party who call themselves 'les Doctrinaires' and say they
are more attached to measures than to men.