I am heartily obliged to my dear Sophy--never mind, you need not turn to
the direction, it _is_ to Margaret, my dear, though it begins with
thanks to Sophy--for being in such haste to relieve my mind from the
agony it was in that _Fashionable Tales_ should reach my aunt. I cannot
by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are none of you
angry with me, and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they
have read of "The Absentee." I long to hear whether their favour
continues to the end and extends to the catastrophe, that dangerous rock
upon which poor authors, even after a prosperous voyage, are wrecked,
sometimes while their friends are actually hailing them from the shore.
I have the _Rosamond_ vase [Footnote: A glass vase which Miss Edgeworth
painted for Mrs. Ruxton, in brown, from Flaxman's designs for the
_Odyssey._] madness so strong upon me, that I am out of my dear bed
regularly at half-past seven in the morning, and never find it more than
half an hour till breakfast time, so happy am I daubing. On one side I
have Ulysses longing to taste Circe's cakes, but saying, "No, thank
you," like a very good boy: and on the other side I have him just come
home, and the old nurse washing his feet, and his queen fast asleep in
her chair by a lamp, which I hope will not set her on fire, though it
is, in spite of my best endeavours, so much out of the perpendicular
that nothing but a miracle can keep it from falling on Penelope's crown.
Little Pakenham is going on bravely (not two months old), and I am just
_beginning_ to write again, and am _in_ "Patronage," and have corrected
all the faults you pointed out to me; and Susan, who was a fool, is now
Rosamond and a wit.
I suppose you have heard various _jeux d'esprit_ on the marriage of Sir
Humphry Davy and Mrs. Apreece? I scarcely think any of them worth
copying: the best _idea_ is stolen from the _bon mot_ on Sir John Carr,
"The Traveller be_k_nighted."
"When Mr. Davy concluded his last Lecture by saying that we were but in
the _Dawn_ of Science, he probably did not expect to be so soon
be_k_nighted."