I do not like to pour out the gratitude I feel for your unremitting
kindness to me, my dear Sophy, in vain thanks; but I may as well pour it
out in words, as I shall probably never be able to return the many good
turns you have done me. I am not nearly ready yet for _Irish Bulls._ I
am going directly to _Parent's Assistant._ Any good anecdotes from the
age of five to fifteen, good latitude and longitude, will suit me; and
if you can tell me any pleasing misfortunes of emigrants, so much the
better. I have a great desire to draw a picture of an anti-Mademoiselle
Panache, a well-informed, well-bred French governess, an emigrant.
By the blind bookseller my father will send you some books, and I hope
that we shall soon have finished Godwin, that he may set out for Black
Castle. There are some parts of his book [Footnote: _Essays_, by the
author of _Caleb Williams._] that I think you will like much--"On
Frankness," and "Self-taught Genius;" but you will find much to blame in
his style, and you will be surprised that he should have written a
dissertation upon English style. I think his essay on Avarice and
Profusion will please you, even after Smith: he has gone a step farther.
I am going to write a story for boys, [Footnote: _The Good Aunt._] which
will, I believe, make a volume to follow the _Good French Governess._ My
father thinks a volume of trials and a volume of plays would be good for
children. He met the other day with two men who were ready to go to law
about a horse which one had bought from the other, because he had one
little fault. "What is the fault?" said my father. "Sir, the horse was
standing with us all the other day in our cabin at the fire, and plump
he fell down upon the middle of the fire and put it out; and it was a
mercy he didn't kill my wife and children as he fell into the midst of
them all. But this is not all, sir; he strayed into a neighbour's field
of oats, and fell down in the midst of the oats, and spoiled as much as
he could have eaten honestly in a week. But that's not all, sir; one
day, please your honour, I rode him out in a hurry to a fair, and he lay
down with me in the ford, and I lost my fair."
* * * * *
For the last few years Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth's sisters, Charlotte and
Mary Sneyd, had lived entirely at Edgeworthstown, not only beloved and
honoured by the children of their two sisters, but tenderly welcomed and
cherished by the children of their predecessor, especially by Maria, to
whom no real aunts could have been more dear. During the seventeen years
through which her married life lasted, Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth had
become increasingly the centre of the family circle, to which she had
herself added five sons and four daughters. In every relation of life
she was admirable. Through the summer of 1797 her health rapidly
declined, and in November she died.
Mr. Edgeworth, then past fifty, had truly valued his third wife, of whom
he said that he had "never seen her out of temper, and never received
from her an unkind word or an angry look." Yet, when he lost her, after
his peculiar fashion, he immediately began to think of marrying again.
Dr. Beaufort, Vicar of Collon, was an agreeable and cultivated man, and
had long been a welcome guest at Mrs. Ruxton's house of Black Castle.
His eldest daughter, who was a clever artist, had designed and drawn
some illustrations for Maria Edgeworth's stories. With these Mr.
Edgeworth found fault, and the good-humour and sense with which his
criticisms were received charmed him, and led to an intimacy. Six months
after his wife's death he married Miss Beaufort.
It may sound strange, but it is nevertheless true, that, in Miss
Beaufort, even more than in her predecessors, he gave to his children a
wise and kind mother, and a most entirely devoted friend.
* * * * *
MISS EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS BEAUFORT.