Indeed you are quite right in thinking that the expressions of affection
from my uncle and you are more delightful to me than all the compliments
or admiration in the world could be. It is no new thing for me to be
happy at Black Castle, but I think I was particularly happy there this
last time. You both made me feel that I added to the pleasures of your
fireside, which after all, old-fashioned or not, are the best of all
pleasures. How I did laugh! and how impossible it is not to laugh in
some company, or to laugh in others. I have often wondered how my ideas
flow or ebb without the influence of my will; sometimes when I am with
those I love, flowing faster than tongue can utter, and sometimes
ebbing, ebbing, till nought but sand and sludge are left.
We have been much entertained with _Le petit Carilloneur._ I would send
it to you, only it is a society book; but I do send by a carman two
volumes of Alfieri's _Life_ and Kirwan's _Essay on Happiness_, and the
Drogheda edition of _Parent's Assistant_, which, with your leave, I
present to your servant Richard.
The Grinding Organ [Footnote: Afterwards published in 1827 in a small
volume, entitled _Little Plays._] went off on Friday night better than I
could have expected, and seemed to please the spectators. Mrs. Pakenham
brought four children, and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson two sons, Mr. and Mrs.
Keating two daughters, which, with the Beauforts, Molly, George, and the
rest of the servants, formed the whole audience. I am sure you would
have enjoyed the pleasure the Bristows showed on seeing and hearing Mary
Bristow perform her part, which she did with perfect propriety. Sophy
and Fanny were excellent, but as they were doomed to be the _good_
children, they had not ample room and verge enough to display powers
equal to the little termagant heroine of the night. William in his Old
Man (to use the newspaper style) was correct and natural. Mr. Edgeworth
as the English Farmer evinced much knowledge of true English character
and humour. Miss Edgeworth as the Widow Ross, "a cursed scold," was
quite at home. It is to be regretted that the Widow Ross has no voice,
as a song in character was of course expected; the Farmer certainly gave
"a fair challenge to a fair lady." His Daniel Cooper was given in an
excellent style, and was loudly encored.
_April 28._
The Primate [Footnote: William Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh, fifth son
of the third Earl of Bute.] was very agreeable during the two days he
spent here. My father travelled with him from Dublin to Ardbraccan, and
this reputed silent man never ceased talking and telling entertaining
anecdotes till the carriage stopped at the steps at Ardbraccan. This I
could hardly credit till I myself heard his Grace burst forth in
conversation. The truth of his character gives such value to everything
he says, even to his humorous stories. He has two things in his
character which I think seldom meet--a strong taste for humour, and
strong feelings of indignation. In his eye you may often see alternately
the secret laughing expression of humour, and the sudden open flash of
indignation. He is a man of the warmest feelings, with the coldest
exterior I ever saw--a master mind. I could not but be charmed with him,
because I saw that he thoroughly appreciated my father.
* * * * *
_Tales of Fashionable Life_ were published in June 1809, and greatly
added to the celebrity of their authoress. "Almeria" is the best, and
full of admirable pictures of character. In all, the object is to depict
the vapid and useless existence of those who live only for society.
Sometimes the moralising becomes tiresome. "Vraiment Miss Edgeworth est
digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans votre triste utilité,"
said Madame de Staël to M. Dumont when she had read the Tales. In that
age of romantic fiction an attempt to depict life as it really was took
the reading world by surprise.
"As a writer of tales and novels," wrote Lord Dudley in the _Quarterly
Review_, "Miss Edgeworth has a very marked peculiarity. It is that of
venturing to dispense common sense to her readers, and to bring them
within the precincts of real life and natural feeling. She presents them
with no incredible adventures or inconceivable sentiments, no
hyperbolical representations of uncommon characters, or monstrous
exhibitions of exaggerated passion. Without excluding love from her
pages, she knows how to assign to it its just limits. She neither
degrades the sentiment from its true dignity, nor lifts it to a
burlesque elevation. It takes its proper place among the passions. Her
heroes and heroines, if such they may be called, are never miraculously
good, nor detestably wicked. They are such men and women as we see and
converse with every day of our lives, with the same proportional mixture
in them of what is right and what is wrong, of what is great and what is
little."
Lord Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_, said: "The writings of
Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular an union of sober sense and
inexhaustible invention, so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes
manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune,
and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment, and of
the illusions by which they are so often obstructed, that we should
separate her from the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and speak of her
Tales as works of more serious importance than much of the true history
and solemn philosophy that comes daily under our inspection.... It is
impossible, I think, to read ten pages in any of her writings without
feeling, not only that the whole, but that every part of them, was
intended to do good."
* * * * *
MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.