I rejoice that you and Sneyd are well enough to enjoy the pleasures of
Paris. I do not know what Sneyd can have done to make Madame Recamier
laugh; in my time she never went beyond the smile prescribed by Lord
Chesterfield as graceful in beauty.
This last week we have had the pleasure of having our kind friends Mrs.
and Miss Carr. Except the first day, which was Irish rainy, every day
has been sunshiny, and my mother has taken advantage of the shrievalty
four horses and two yellow jackets to drive about. They went to
Baronston, where there is a link of connection with the Carrs through an
English friend, Mrs. Benyon. Lady Sunderlin and Miss Catherine Malone
did the joint honours of their house most amiably, and gave as fine a
collation of grapes, nectarines, and peaches as France could supply.
Another morning we took a tour of the tenants. Hugh Kelly's house and
parlour and gates and garden, and all that should accompany a
farm-house, as nice as any England could afford. James Allen, though
grown very old, and in a forlorn black shag wig, looked like a
respectable yeoman, "the country's pride," and at my instance brought
out as fine a group of grandchildren as ever graced a cottage lawn.
In driving home at the cross-roads by Corbey we had the good fortune to
come in for an Irish dance, the audience or spectators seated on each
side of the road on opposite benches; all picturesque in the sunshine of
youth and age, with every variety of attitude and expression of
enjoyment. The dancers, in all the vivacity and graces of an Irish jig,
delighted our English friends; and we stood up in the landau for nearly
twenty minutes looking at them.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.
_Oct. 14._
We have been much interested in the life and letters of that most
excellent, amiable, and unpretending Lady Russell. [Footnote: Lady
Rachel Wriothesley, second daughter of Thomas Earl of Southampton, who
married (1) Francis Lord Vaughan; (2) William Lord Russell, the patriot,
beheaded July 21, 1683.] There are touches in these letters which paint
domestic happiness, and the character of a mother and a wife with
beautiful simplicity. I even like Miss Berry much the better for the
manner in which she has edited this book.
_Nov 5._
Have you the fourth number of _Modern Voyages and Travels_ which
contains Chateauvieux's travels in Italy? I have been so much delighted
with it, and feel so sure of its _transporting_ my aunt, that I had
hardly read the last words before I was going to pack it off post-haste
to Black Castle, but Prudence, in the shape of Honora, in a lilac
tabinet gown, whispered, "Better wait till you hear whether they have
read it."
Have I mentioned to you Bassompierre's _Memoirs_? a new edition, with
notes by Croker, which make the pegs on which they hang gay and
valuable. What an extraordinary collection of strange facts and strange
thoughts are dragged together in the _Quarterly Review_ of the
Cemeteries and Catacombs of Paris; the Jewish _House of the Living_; the
excommunicated skeletons coming into the church to parley with the
Bishop; and the Parisian sentimentalist in the country who sent for
barrels of ink from Paris to put his trees in mourning for the death of
his mother; and the fountain, called the _weeping eye_, for the death of
his wife, by the Dane. I hope, my dear friends, that you have been
reading these things, and that they have struck you as they did me;
there are few things pleasanter than these "jumping thoughts."
Now that I have a little time, and eyes to read again, I find it
delightful, and I have a voracious appetite, and a relish for food,
good, bad, and indifferent, I am afraid, like a half-famished,
shipwrecked wretch.
_28th._
Such a scene of lying and counter-lying as we have had with the cook and
her accuser, the kitchen-maid! The cook was dismissed on the spot. One
expression of Peggy Tuite's I must tell you--with her indignant figure
of truth defending herself against falsehood--when Rose, the vile public
accuser, said, in part of her speech, recollecting from Peggy Tuite's
dress, who came clean from chapel, that it was Sunday, "And it's two
masses I have lost by you already!" to which Peggy replied, "Oh, Rose,
the mass is in the heart, not in the chapel! only speak the truth."
* * * * *
Miss Edgeworth's steadiness in resting her eyes, neither reading nor
writing for nearly two years, was rewarded by their complete recovery;
and she was able to read, write, and work with ease and comfort all the
rest of her life.
This autumn of 1819 she was made happy by the return of the two Miss
Sneyds [Footnote: Sisters of her two former stepmothers, the second and
third wives of Mr. R. L. Edgeworth.] from England to Edgeworthstown,
where with short intervals, they continued to reside as long as they
lived.
* * * * *
MARIA _to_ MISS RUXTON.