I wish, my dear Sophy, that you could know how often I think of you and
wish for you, whenever we see or hear anything that I imagine you would
like. How does your ward go on? My mother desires me to say the kindest
things to you, and assure yourself, my dear Sophy, that when my mother
says the kindest, they are always at the same time the truest. She is
not a person ever to forget a favour, and the care and trouble you are
now bestowing on little Thomas Day will be remembered probably after you
have forgotten it. But my father interrupts me at this moment, to say
that if I am writing to Sophy I must give him some room at the end, so I
shall leave off my fine speeches. We spend our time very agreeably here,
and have in particular great choice of books. I don't think the children
are quite as happy here as they used to be at home, it is impossible
they should be, for they have neither the same occupations nor liberty.
It is however "restraint that sweetens liberty," and the joy they show
when they run upon the Downs, hunting fossils, and clambering, is indeed
very great. Henry flatters himself that he shall some time or other have
the pleasure of exhibiting his collection to Cousin Sophy, and rehearses
frequently in the character of showman. Dr. Darwin has been so good as
to send him several fossils, etc., with their names written upon them,
and he is every day adding to his little stock of _larning._ There is a
very sensible man here who has also made him presents of little things
which he values much, and he begins to _mess_ a great deal with gums,
camphor, etc. He will at least never come under Dr. Darwin's definition
of a fool. "A fool, Mr. Edgeworth, you know, is a man who never tried an
experiment in his life." My father tells me that Henry has acquired a
taste for improving himself, and that all he has now to fear is my taste
for improving him.
We went the other day to see a collection of natural curiosities at a
Mr. Broderip's, of Bristol, which entertained us very much. My father
observed he had but very few butterflies, and he said, "No, sir, a
circumstance which happened to me some time ago, determined me never to
collect any more butterflies. I caught a most beautiful butterfly,
thought I had killed it, and ran a pin through its body to fasten it to
a cork: a _fortnight_ afterward I happened to look in the box where I
had left it, and I saw it writhing in agony: since that time I have
never destroyed another."
My father has just returned from Dr. Darwin's, where he has been nearly
three weeks: they were extremely kind, and pressed him very much to take
a house in or near Derby for the summer. He has been, as Dr. Darwin
expressed it, "breathing the breath of life into the brazen lungs of a
clock" which he had made at Edgeworthstown as a present for him. He saw
the first part of Dr. Darwin's _Botanic Garden_; £900 was what his
bookseller gave him for the whole! On his return from Derby, my father
spent a day with Mr. Keir, the great chemist, at Birmingham: he was
speaking to him of the late discovery of fulminating silver, with which
I suppose your ladyship is well acquainted, though it be new to Henry
and me. A lady and gentleman went into a laboratory where a few grains
of fulminating silver were lying in a mortar: the gentleman, as he was
talking, happened to stir it with the end of his cane, which was tipped
with iron,--the fulminating silver exploded instantly, and blew the
lady, the gentleman, and the whole laboratory to pieces! Take care how
you go into laboratories with gentlemen, unless they are like Sir Plume
skilled in the "nice conduct" of their canes.
Have you seen any of the things that have been lately published about
the negroes? We have just read a very small pamphlet of about ten pages,
merely an account of the facts stated to the House of Commons.
Twenty-five thousand people in England have absolutely left off eating
West India sugar, from the hope that when there is no longer any demand
for sugar the slaves will not be so cruelly treated. Children in several
schools have given up sweet things, which is surely very benevolent;
though whether it will at all conduce to the end proposed is perhaps
wholly uncertain, and in the meantime we go on eating apple pies
sweetened with sugar instead of with honey. At Mr. Keir's, however, my
father avers that he ate excellent custards sweetened with honey. Will
it not be rather hard upon the poor bees in the end?
Mrs. Yearsly, the milkwoman, whose poems I daresay my aunt has seen,
lives very near us at Clifton: we have never seen her, and probably
never shall, for my father is so indignant against her for her
ingratitude to her benefactress, Miss Hannah More, that he thinks she
deserves to be treated with _neglect._ She was dying, absolutely
expiring with hunger, when Miss More found her. Her mother was a
washerwoman, and washed for Miss More's family; by accident, in a
tablecloth which was sent to her was left a silver spoon, which Mrs.
Yearsly returned. Struck with this instance of honesty, which was
repeated to her by the servants, Miss More sent for her, discovered her
distress and her genius, and though she was extremely eager in preparing
some of her own works for the press, she threw them all aside to correct
Mrs. Yearsly's poems, and obtained for her a subscription of £600. In
return, Mrs. Yearsly accused her of having defrauded her, of having been
actuated only by vanity in bringing her abilities to light--a new
species of vanity from one authoress to another--in short, abused her in
the basest and most virulent manner. Would you go to see Mrs. Yearsly?
Lo! I have almost filled the Bristol Chronicle, and have yet much that I
wish to say to you, dear Sophy, and that I could tell you in one
half-hour, talking at my usual rate of nine miles an hour: when that
will be, it is impossible to tell. My mother is now getting better. All
the children are perfectly well: Bessy's eyes are not inflamed:
Charlotte _est faite à peindre et plus encore à aimer_, if that were
French.
* * * * *
Little Thomas Day Edgeworth died at the age of three, whilst he was in
the care of the Ruxtons, and about the same time Maria Edgeworth's own
brother Richard, who had paid a long visit to his family at Clifton,
returned to North Carolina, where he had married and was already a
father.
* * * * *
MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.