I
The story of the Edgeworth Family, if it were properly told, should be
as long as the ARABIAN NIGHTS themselves; the thousand and one cheerful
intelligent members of the circle, the amusing friends and relations,
the charming surroundings, the cheerful hospitable home, all go to make
up an almost unique history of a county family of great parts and no
little character. The Edgeworths were people of good means and position,
and their rental, we are told, amounted to nearly £3000 a year. At one
time there was some talk of a peerage for Mr. Edgeworth, but he was
considered too independent for a peerage.
The family tradition seems to have been unconventional and spirited
always. There are records still extant in the present Mr. Edgeworth’s
possession,--papers of most wonderful vitality for parchment,--where
you may read passionate remonstrances and adjurations from
great-grandfathers to great-great-grandfathers, and where
great-great-grandmothers rush into the discussion with vehement spelling
and remonstrance, and make matters no better by their interference. I
never read more passionately eloquent letters and appeals. There
are also records of a pleasanter nature; merrymakings, and festive
preparations, and 12s. 6d. for a pair of silk stockings for Miss
Margaret Edgeworth to dance in, carefully entered into the family
budget. All the people whose portraits are hanging up, beruffled,
dignified, calm, and periwigged, on the old walls of Edgeworthstown
certainly had extraordinarily strong impressions, and gave eloquent
expression to them. I don’t think people could feel quite so strongly
now about their own affairs as they did then; there are so many printed
emotions, so many public events, that private details cannot seem quite
as important. Edgeworths of those days were farther away from the world
than they are now, dwelling in the plains of Longford, which as yet
were not crossed by iron rails. The family seems to have made little
of distances, and to have ridden and posted to and fro from Dublin to
Edgeworthstown in storm and sunshine.