I have not forgotten my promise to write to you, and I think I can give
you pleasure by telling you that Henry is getting better every day,
[Footnote: Henry was only better for a time: he was never really
restored to health, though he lived till 1813.] and that we have all
been extremely happy in the company of several of his friends in
Edinburgh and Glasgow. He has made these friends by his own good
qualities, and good conduct, and we hear them speak of him with the
greatest esteem and affection. This morning Dr. Birkbeck, one of Henry's
friends, took us to see several curious machines, in a house where he
gives lectures on mechanical and chemical subjects. He is going to give
a lecture on purpose for children, and he says he took the idea for
doing so from _Practical Education._ He opened a drawer and showed to me
a little perspective machine he had made from the print of my father's;
and we were also very much surprised to sec in one of his rooms a large
globe of silk, swelled out and lighted by a lamp withinside, so that
when the room was darkened we could plainly see the map of the world
painted on it, as suggested in _Practical Education._ My father
mentioned to this gentleman my Aunt Charlotte's invention of painting
the stars on the inside of an umbrella: he was much pleased with it, and
I think he will make such an umbrella.... Tell Sneyd that we saw at
Edinburgh his old friend the Irish giant. I suppose he remembers seeing
him at Bristol? he is so tall that he can with ease lean his arm on the
top of the room door. I stood beside him, and the top of my head did not
reach to his hip. My father laid his hand withinside of the giant's
hand, and it looked as small as little Harriet's would in John Langan's.
This poor giant looks very sallow and unhealthy, and seemed not to like
to sit or stand all day for people to look at him.
* * * * *
After the return of the family to Edgeworthstown, Miss Edgeworth at once
began to occupy herself with preparing for the press _Popular Tales_,
which were published this year. She also began _Emilie de Coulanges,
Madame de Fleury_, and _Ennui_, and wrote _Leonora_ with the romantic
purpose already mentioned.
In 1804 she found time to write _Griselda_, which she amused herself
with at odd moments in her own room without telling her father what she
was about. When finished, she sent it to Johnson, who had the
good-nature, at her request, to print a title-page for a single copy
without her name to it: he then sent it over to Mr. Edgeworth as a new
novel just come out. Mr. Edgeworth read it with surprise and admiration.
He could not believe Maria could have had the actual time to write it,
and yet it was so like her style; he at last exclaimed, "It must be
Anna's. Anna has written this to please me. It is by some one we are
interested in, Mary was so anxious I should read it." Miss Sneyd was in
the secret, and had several times put it before him on the table: at
last she told him it was Maria's. He was amused at the trick, and
delighted at having admired the book without knowing its author.
* * * * *