All's well at home; the chickens are all good and thriving, and there is
plenty of provender, and of everything that we can want or wish for:
therefore we all hope that you will fully enjoy the pleasures of Black
Castle without being anxious for your bairns.
Pray tell my dear aunt that I am not ungrateful for all the kindness she
showed to me while I was with her: it rejoiced my heart to hear her say,
when she took leave of me, that she did not love me less for knowing me
better.
Kitty wakened me this morning saying, "Dear, ma'am, how charming you
smell of coals! quite charming!" and she snuffed the ambient air.
[Footnote: The coal burnt at Black Castle was naturally more agreeable
to Mrs. Billamore (a faithful servant) than the bog turf used at
Edgeworthstown.]
_To_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _July_ 2, 1794,
having the honour to be the fair
day of Edgeworthstown, as is well
proclaimed to the neighbourhood
by the noise of pigs squeaking,
men bawling, women brawling,
and children squealing, etc.
I will tell you what is going on, that you may see whether you like your
daily bill of fare.
There are, an' please you, ma'am, a great many good things here. There
is a balloon hanging up, and another going to be put on the stocks:
there is soap made, and making from a receipt in Nicholson's
_Chemistry_: there is excellent ink made, and to be made by the same
book: there is a cake of roses just squeezed in a vice, by my father,
according to the advice of Madame de Lagaraye, the woman in the black
cloak and ruffles, who weighs with unwearied scales, in the frontispiece
of a book, which perhaps my aunt remembers, entitled _Chemie de goút et
de l'odorat._ There are a set of accurate weights, just completed by the
ingenious Messrs. Lovell and Henry Edgeworth, partners: for Henry is now
a junior partner, and grown an inch and a half upon the strength of it
in two months. The use and ingenuity of these weights I do, or did,
understand; it is great, but I am afraid of puzzling you and disgracing
myself attempting to explain it; especially as, my mother says, I once
sent you a receipt for purifying water with charcoal, which she avers to
have been above, or below, the comprehension of any rational being.
My father bought a great many books at Mr. Dean's sale. Six volumes of
_Machines Approuvés_, full of prints of paper mills, gunpowder mills,
_machines pour remonter les batteaux, machines pour_--a great many
things which you would like to see I am sure over my father's shoulder.
And my aunt would like to see the new staircase, and to see a kitcat
view of a robin redbreast sitting on her nest in a sawpit, discovered by
Lovell, and you would both like to pick Emmeline's fine strawberries
round the crowded oval table after dinner, and to see my mother look so
much better in the midst of us.
If these delights thy soul can move,
Come live with us and be our love.
_To_ MRS. RUXTON.