Maria Edgeworth Part 5

The first series of _Tales from Fas.h.i.+onable_ _Life_ met with so much favor that the publisher clamored for more. Some were lying ready, others had to be written, but in 1812 Miss Edgeworth was able to issue a second series, containing three stories, of which one, _The Absentee_, ranks worthily beside _Castle Rackrent_ as a masterpiece. The evils this story sought to expose came daily under Miss Edgeworth's observation; she beheld the Irish landed gentry forsake their homes and their duties in order to go to London and cut a figure in fas.h.i.+onable society, spending beyond their means, oblivious of the state of home affairs, and merely regarding their properties as good milch kine. How their unfortunate tenants were ground down in order to meet these claims they neither knew nor cared. Lord and Lady Clonbrony, the absentees, are drawn with vivid touches: she is devoured by ambition to s.h.i.+ne in a society for which she is not fitted, and voluntarily submits to any humiliations and rebuffs, any sacrifices, to attain this end; he, uprooted from his wonted surroundings, cannot acclimatize himself to new ones, and, merely to pa.s.s his time, sinks into the vices of gaming and betting. Lady Clonbrony affects a contempt for her native land and pretends she is not Irish. As, however, she cannot rid herself of an Irish p.r.o.nunciation and Irish phrases, she is constantly placed in the dilemma of holding her tongue and appearing yet more foolish than she is; or, by mistaking reverse of wrong for right, so caricaturing the English p.r.o.nunciation that thus alone she betrayed herself not to be English. In vain, too, this lady struggles to school her free, good-natured Irish manner into the cold, sober, stiff deportment she deems English. The results to which all this gives rise are delineated with consummate skill and good-humored satire. The scenes that occur in London society are highly diverting, but the story gains in deeper interest when it s.h.i.+fts to Ireland, whither Lady Clonbrony drives her only son, Lord Colambre, whom she has sought to marry against his will to an English heiress. Unknown to his tenants, from whom he has so long been absent, and further purposely disguised in order to elicit the truth concerning certain unfavorable rumors that have reached his ears, Lord Colambre is a witness of the oppressions under which his tenants labor from an unscrupulous and rapacious agent, who feels secure in his master's absence, and in that master's indifference to all but the money result of his estate. Charmingly is the Irish character here described; we see it in its best phases, with all its kindliness, wit, generosity.

There are elements of simple pathos scattered about this story. With delicate and playful humor we are shown the heroic and imaginative side of the Irish peasantry. We quite love the kindly old woman who kills her last fowl to furnish supper to the stranger, whom she does not know to be her landlord. On the other hand we are amused beyond measure with Mrs. Rafferty, the Dublin grocer's wife and _parvenue_, who, in the absence of those who should have upheld Irish society, is able to make that dash that Lady Clonbrony vainly seeks to make in London. Her mixture of taste and incongruity, finery and vulgarity, affectation and ignorance, is delightful. The dinner-party scene at her house would make the reputation of many a modern novelist. It was a dinner of profusion and pretension, during which Mrs. Rafferty toiled in vain to conceal the blunders of her two untrained servants, who were expected to do the work of five accomplished waiters, talking high art meanwhile to her lordly guest, and occasionally venting her ill humor at the servants' blunders upon her unfortunate husband, calling out so loud that all the table could hear, "Corny Rafferty, Corny Rafferty, you're no more _gud_ at the _fut_ of my table than a stick of celery!" As for the scene in which Lord Colambre discovers himself to his tenantry and to their oppressor, Macaulay has ventured to p.r.o.nounce it the best thing written of its kind since the opening of the twenty-second book of the Odyssey. No mean authority and no mean praise! As a story it is certainly one of the best contrived, and the end is particularly happy. Instead of a tedious moral there is a racy letter from the post-boy who drove Lord Colambre, and who paints, with true Hibernian vivacity and some delicious malaprops, the ultimate return of the Clonbrony family to their estate, which, to the optimistic Irish mind, represents the end of all their troubles and the inauguration of a new era of prosperity and justice. For one thing, it is so much more in keeping that an uncultured peasant, rather than a thoughtful and philosophical mind, should believe in so simple a solution to evils of long standing; that what we should have felt an error in Miss Edgeworth becomes right and natural in Larry. The suggestion for this conclusion came from Mr. Edgeworth, and he wrote a letter for the purpose. Miss Edgeworth, however, wrote one too, and her father so much preferred hers that it was chosen to form the admirable finale to the _Absentee_.

What perfect self-control Miss Edgeworth possessed may be judged from the fact that the whole of the _Absentee_, so full of wit and spirit, was written in great part while she was suffering agonies from toothache. Only by keeping her mouth full of some strong lotion could she in any way allay the pain, yet her family state that never did she write with more rapidity and ease. Her even-handed justice, her stern love of truth, are markedly shown in this novel. She does not exaggerate for the sake of strengthening her effects; thus, for example, she does not make all her agents bad, as some writers would have done; indeed, one is a very model middle-man. She is always far more careful to be true than to be effective, she uses the sober colors of reality, she paints with no tints warmer than life. The chief and abiding merit of her Irish scenes is not that of describing what had not been described before, but of describing well what had been described ill.

_Vivian_ was written with extreme care and by no means with the same rapidity, yet it cannot be compared to the _Absentee_. Here Miss Edgeworth was once more clogged by her purpose and unable for a moment to lose sight of it. "I have put my head and shoulders to the business,"

she writes to her cousin, "and if I don't make a good story of it, it shall not be for want of pains." It proved no easy task, and only the fact that her father so much approved it, upheld her. "My father says _Vivian_ will stand next to _Mrs. Beaumont_ and _Ennui_. I have ten days' more work on it, and then huzza! ten days' more purgatory at other corrections, and then a heaven upon earth of idleness and reading, which is my idleness." _Vivian_ is a particularly aggravating story, so excellent that it is hard to comprehend why it is not of that first-cla.s.s merit which it just seems to miss. Its aim is to ill.u.s.trate the evils and perplexities that arise from vacillation and infirmity of purpose, and it is rather a series of incidents than one well-rounded plot. Miss Edgeworth loves to paint, not an episode in life, but the history of a whole life-career. This permits her to trace out those gradual evolutions of some fault of character in which she displays such consummate ability, such precision and metaphysical subtlety. The hero, Vivian, a man of good disposition, but lacking firmness of purpose, cannot say "no," while at the same time he has all the spirit of opposition which seems to go hand in hand with weak characters, and is by them mistaken for resolution. The faults, the errors, the griefs, this trait of character leads him into are the staple of the story, which ends mournfully, since Vivian's inability to cure himself of his fault finally leads to his own death in a duel. He has not inaptly been named "a domestic Hamlet." Like Hamlet, he is neither able to accommodate himself to life as it is, nor strong enough to strike out a new life on his own account. The tale abounds in clever pictures of aristocratic and political society, and is full of the intrigues, the petty meannesses of social leaders. As usual, the moral instances are both striking and amusing, reason and ridicule being mixed in those just proportions that Miss Edgeworth knew how to blend so happily. A serious defect is undoubtedly the fact that it is not possible to care for the hero, and hence we grow rather indifferent to his good or ill fortune, and after a while are weary of the undoubted skill and perverted ingenuity with which he apologizes for his vacillation. On the other hand, as ever with Miss Edgeworth, the subordinate characters are throughout excellent, drawn with force and life-like power. Lord Glis...o...b..ry alone would redeem the book from the possibility of being dull. This talkative, conceited man, of neither principle nor understanding, who chatters adopted opinions and original nonsense, who loves to hear himself speak, and believes he is uttering great things, is a distinct creation.

The story of _Madame de Fleury_ is slight in texture. It relates the experience of a rich and benevolent French lady who conducts a school for poor children after the Edgeworth type, and is rather a transcript from real life than a tale. Formal and conventional though it is, however, it was never wholly possible to Miss Edgeworth to belie her genius. Invariably she introduces some character, trait or observation that redeems even a dull tale from condemnation. In this case it is the delicate skill with which is depicted the gradual decline in character of Manon, who from an unconscientious child becomes a bold, unscrupulous woman. It was in penning _Madame de Fleury_ that Miss Edgeworth encountered the difficulty she had observed of making truth and fiction mix well together. _Emilie de Coulanges_ is the too correctly virtuous and rather colorless daughter of a refugee French countess, whose provoking character is deftly depicted with its selfishness, its self-absorption, that renders her both ungrateful and regardless of the comfort of the English lady who has most generously entertained her at no little personal inconvenience. Unfortunately an irritable temper mars Mrs. Somers' good, generous nature, and causes her to weary out even the affections of those who have most cause to love her. It also renders her suspicious of the probity, the good intentions of her friends. She loves to arouse sentimental quarrels; the bickerings and ultimate reconciliation give her real pleasure, as a form of mental t.i.tillation, and she fails to see that, though with her it is all surface, as her real feelings are not aroused, this may not be the case with her victims. Mrs. Somers, who may rank as the true heroine, is a bold yet highly-finished portrait, conceived and executed in Miss Edgeworth's best manner. The countess is little less happy. Miss Edgeworth possessed in a high degree that intuitive judgment of character which is more common in women than in men, and which, when properly exercised, balanced by judgment and matured by experience, explains the success they have met with in the domain of fict.i.tious literature.

Again and again Miss Edgeworth proved the fecund creativeness with which she could delineate the moral and intellectual anatomy of the most varied and various characters. Her personages are animate with life and brightness. Above all else she was an artist in detail, and never more felicitous than when furnis.h.i.+ng studies of foible in female form. Of this the _Modern Griselda_ is a notable instance--a brilliant performance, almost too brilliant, for it scintillates with wit and epigrammatic wisdom; it never fails or flags for one little moment, so that at last the reader's attention is in danger of being surfeited by a feast of good things. The fable is the direct opposite to that of the old story of Griselda. In the words of Milton we are shown how it befalls the man

Who to worth in woman over-trusting, Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook; And left to herself, if evil thence ensue, She first his weak indulgence will accuse.

This the modern Griselda does to her husband's cost and her own. The story is a remarkable evidence of Miss Edgeworth's independence of genius. She showed no weak sympathy with the failings of her s.e.x just because it was her s.e.x, but, like a true friend, held them up to view and pointed them out for correction. Her objectiveness did not insure her, however, from misconstruction. Mrs. Barbauld wrote to her:--

I became very impatient for your _Griselda_ before Johnson thought proper to produce it; need I add we have read it with great pleasure? It is charming, like everything you write, but I can tell you the gentlemen like it better than the ladies, and if you were to be tried by a jury of your own s.e.x I do not know what punishment you might be sentenced to for having betrayed their cause. "The author is one of your own s.e.x; we men have nothing to do but to stand by and laugh," was the remark of a gentleman, no less candid a man than Dr. Aiken: and then the moral (a general moral if I understand it right) that a man must not indulge his wife too much!

If I were a new-married woman I do not know whether I would forgive you till you had made the _amende honorable_ by writing something to expose the men. All, however, are unanimous in admiring the sprightliness of the dialogue and the ingenious and varied perverseness of the heroine.

To this letter Miss Edgeworth replied:--

Let me a.s.sure you that the little tale was written in playfulness, not bitterness of heart. Not one of the female committee who sat upon it every day whilst it was writing and reading ever imagined that it should be thought a severe libel upon the s.e.x, perhaps because their attention was fixed upon Mrs. Granby, who at least is as much a panegyric as Mrs. Bolingbroke is a satire upon the s.e.x.

_Popular Tales_ were issued, and also in great part written, before the two series of _Fas.h.i.+onable Tales_, and, taken as a whole, do not approach them in merit. They are more crude in conception, more didactic in manner; the moral is too obviously thrust into view, and at times even the very philosophy the author strives to inculcate is halting. The intensity and severe restraint of her purpose had blinded her vision, perverted her logic; and thus the value of some of these ingenious apologues is lowered. There is a character of childishness and poorness about many of these tales that detracts seriously from the really accurate observation and acute knowledge of human nature that they inclose. Further, too, there is always such a sober, practical, authentic air about all Miss Edgeworth's narratives, that glaring inconsistencies and forced catastrophes strike us with double force as ludicrous and unnatural when introduced by her. We certainly incline to think that the result of perusing at one sitting the two volumes of Miss Edgeworth's _Popular Tales_ could lead to that outburst of pharisaical pride:--

Said I then to my heart, "Here's a lesson for me!

That man's but a picture of what I might be; But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding, Who have taught me, betimes, to love working and reading."

_Popular Tales_ were devised with a view to correct the errors and temptations of middle-cla.s.s life, and were intended for a cla.s.s which in those days was not much in the habit of reading.

Mr. and Miss Edgeworth, though advanced and liberal thinkers in many ways, were conservative in others, and, curiously enough, carried the idea of cla.s.s distinction into the domain of reading. They deemed that to reach the middle cla.s.ses a different character of story must be conceived from that destined for persons of rank. There is a navete, a gentle absurdity, about this simple fancy that we cannot help attributing to Mr. Edgeworth's unimaginative mind. In a brief but bombastic preface this worthy personage sets forth the pretension of the writer of these stories, and gives a list of the cla.s.ses for which they are adapted. Why did he not also devise some method, by which to insure that none of the tales should be read or bought save by persons of a certain social standard? It would have been equally reasonable. To make a distinction between tales for children and for adults is proper and right; to draw a fine distinction between cla.s.ses, unfit and childish.

The process of natural selection will of its own accord effect the result that no one will read that which is tedious. Yet even when hampered by the ill.u.s.tration of copy-book morality, Miss Edgeworth could not hide her power. She never repeats herself; every story is unlike the other. She does not angrily apply herself to the correction of the vices and abuses she holds peculiar to the cla.s.s she addresses; neither does she magnify, even though she emphasizes. We only behold them shorn of the indulgences and palliations they too often meet with. She was neither a Utopian purist nor a sentimental innocent; nor can she belie a natural tendency to make her ethics rather a code of high-minded expediency than of high principle for its own sake only. Throughout her writings she shows that from low as well as high motives, good actions are the best; but she never suffers her characters to rest in the reward of a quiet conscience. Her supreme good sense was always mingled with a regard for the social proprieties; she never loses these quite from sight; her idea of right is as much to preserve these as for right itself. For, after all, Miss Edgeworth's life revolved amid the fas.h.i.+onable world, and lofty as her aims are, she was not wholly untainted by her surroundings. She accounts it no crime in her heroines if they look out for a good establishment, money, horses, carriages; provided always that the man they marry be no dunce, she will overlook any little lack of affection. But, after all, she was teaching only in accordance with the superficial philosophy of the last century, which led people to found their doctrines entirely upon self-interest.

Still, a tone of rationality and good sense was so new in the tales of Miss Edgeworth's period, that to this alone a large share of the undoubted success and popularity of the _Popular Tales_ may be ascribed.

Lord Jeffrey, criticising them at the time of their appearance, remarked that "it required almost the same courage to get rid of the jargon of fas.h.i.+onable life, and the swarms of peers, foundlings and seducers, as it did to sweep away the mythological persons of antiquity and to introduce characters who spoke and acted like those who were to peruse these adventures." Miss Edgeworth was certainly the first woman to make domestic fiction the vehicle of great and necessary truths, and on this account alone she must ever take high rank, and be forgiven if that which has been said of her in general be specially true of _Popular Tales_, that: "She walks by the side of her characters as Mentor by the side of Telemachus, keeping them out of all manner of pleasant mischief, and wagging the monitory head and waving the remonstrating finger, should their breath come thick at approaching adventures."

CHAPTER IX.

VISIT TO LONDON.--MR. EDGEWORTH'S DEATH.

Busily, happily, uneventfully time flowed on at Edgeworthstown, while abroad Miss Edgeworth's fame was steadily on the increase. But whatever the world might say, however kind, nay flattering, its verdict, this preeminently sensible woman did not suffer herself to be deluded by success. That she knew precisely and gauged correctly the extent and limits of her power, is proved by a letter written to Mr. Elton Hammond, who had over-zealously defended her from criticism:--

I thank you for your friendly zeal in defense of my powers of pathos and sublimity, but I think it carries you much too far, and you imagine that I refrain from principle or virtue from displaying powers which I really do not possess. I a.s.sure you that I am not in the least degree capable of writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode. Therefore it would be the meanest affectation in me to pretend to refrain from such efforts of genius. In novel-writing I certainly have from principle avoided all exaggerated sentiment; but I am well aware that many other writers possess in a much higher degree than I do the power of pathos and the art of touching the pa.s.sions. As to how I should use these powers if I had them, perhaps I cannot fairly judge, but all I am at present sure of is that I will not depreciate that which I do not possess.

Another letter to the same correspondent deserves quotation, as giving her views on authors.h.i.+p. Mr. Hammond had consulted her as to the advisability of his adventuring on that career. Miss Edgeworth replied:--

If everybody were to wait till they could write a book in which there should not be a single fault or error, the press might stand still for ages yet unborn. Mankind must have arrived at the summit of knowledge before language could be as perfect as you expect yours to be. Till ideas are exact, just and sufficient, how can words which represent them be accurate? The advantage of the art of printing is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and writing will be corrected in time by the public--so that the cause of truth cannot suffer, and I presume you are too much of a philosopher to mind the trifling mortification to your vanity which the detection of a mistake might occasion. You know that some sensible person has observed, only in other words, that we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday.... I think that only little or weak minds are so dreadfully afraid of being ever in the wrong.

Those who feel that they have resources, that they have means of compensating for errors, have never this horror of being found in a mistake.

In the spring of 1813 Mr., Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth visited London, where they were much lionized. According to contemporaries it was the daughter for whom the attentions were mainly meant, though she, of course, deemed them intended for her father. Crabb Robinson said that Miss Edgeworth gained the good will of every one during this visit. Not so her father; his "c.o.c.k-sureness," dictatorial and dogmatic manner gave much offense in society.

They met every one worth meeting during their brief stay, and many famous names glint across the pages of the one letter that has been preserved treating of this London visit. Perhaps it was the only one written, for she describes themselves as being, from morning till night, in a whirl of gaiety and sight-seeing, "that how we got through the day and night with our heads on our shoulders is a matter of astonishment to me.... But I trust we have left London without acquiring any taste for dissipation or catching the rage for finery and fine people." In this one letter there are, unfortunately, none of those delightfully detailed descriptions of persons and events that she gave from France. Among the distinguished persons she met, Lord Byron is mentioned. Singularly enough she dismisses him with just the last remark that one would have expected concerning the poet, about whose good looks, at least, the world was unanimous: "Of Lord Byron, I can only tell you that his appearance is nothing that you would remark." He, on his part, was more favorably impressed. He writes in his journal:--

I had been the lion of 1812. Miss Edgeworth and Mme. de Stael with _The Cossack_, towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year. I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk and restless.

He was seventy, but did not look fifty, no, nor forty-eight even. I had seen poor Fitz-Patrick not very long before--a man of pleasure, wit and eloquence, all things. He tottered, but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly; Edgeworth bounced about and talked loud and long; but he seemed neither weakly nor decrepit, and hardly old.

Byron then remarks that he heard Mr. Edgeworth boast of having put down Dr. Parr, a boast which Byron took leave to think not true. He adds:--

For the rest, he seemed intelligent, vehement, vivacious and full of life. He bids fair for a hundred years. He was not much admired in London, and I remember a "ryghte merrie" and conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day, viz.: a paper had been presented for the _recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage_, to which all men had been called to subscribe; whereupon Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did propose that a similar paper should be _sub_scribed and _circ.u.m_scribed for the recall of Mr.

Edgeworth to Ireland. The fact was, everybody cared more about _her_. She was a nice little una.s.suming "Jeanie Deans" looking body, as we Scotch say, and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she could write her name; whereas her father talked, not as if he could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth writing.

To turn from them to their works, I admire them; but they excite no feeling and they leave no love, except for some Irish steward or postilion. However, the impression of intellect and prudence is profound, and may be useful.

To the Edgeworths' regret they left London before the arrival of Madame de Stael, for whom all the world was eagerly looking. The poet Rogers, noted for malicious sayings, a.s.serted at a dinner-party that this was not accident, but design; that Madame de Stael would not arrive till Miss Edgeworth had gone. "Madame de Stael would not like two stars s.h.i.+ning at the same time." Fortunately, for once, he was reproved; for it happened that, unknown to him, Madame de Stael's son was of the company, who indignantly repelled the insinuation that his mother could be capable of such meanness.

As always, Miss Edgeworth was glad to get home again:--

The brilliant panorama of London is over, and I have enjoyed more pleasure and have had more amus.e.m.e.nt, infinitely more than I expected, and received more attention, more kindness, than I could have thought it possible would be shown to me; I have enjoyed the delight of seeing my father esteemed and honored by the best judges in England; I have felt the pleasure of seeing my true friend and mother--for she has been a mother to me--appreciated in the best society; and now, with the fullness of content, I return home, loving my own friends and my own mode of life preferably to all others, after comparison with all that is fine and gay, and rich and rare.

I feel that I return with fresh pleasure to literary work from having been so long idle, and I have a famis.h.i.+ng appet.i.te for reading. All that we saw in London I am sure I enjoyed, while it was pa.s.sing, as much as possible; but I should be sorry to live in that whirling vortex, and I find my taste and conviction confirmed on my return to my natural friends and my dear home.

Seeing _Patronage_ through the press, and writing the continuations of _Frank_, _Rosamond_, and _Harry and Lucy_, were Miss Edgeworth's immediate occupations on her return.

Early in 1814 Mr. Edgeworth showed the first infirmities of age, which resulted in a long and painful illness. During its course Miss Edgeworth's letters were only bulletins of his health. The anxiety the family had so long felt concerning Lovell Edgeworth, on whom, on Mr.

Edgeworth's death, all his duties would devolve, and who was still a prisoner, was heightened by this event. It was, therefore, an increased joy when, upon the entrance of the Allies into Paris, after a forcible detention of eleven years, Lovell Edgeworth was at last released and able to hasten home. The pleasure of seeing him helped to restore his father's health; but it was evident that Mr. Edgeworth's const.i.tution had received a shock, and he himself never swerved from the opinion that his existence might be prolonged a year, or even two, but that permanent recovery was out of all question. This did not depress him. As before, he continued to be actively employed, interested in all new things, in all the life about him, and repeatedly exclaimed, "How I enjoy my existence!" "He did not for his own sake desire length of life," says his daughter, "but it was his prayer that his mind might not decay before his body." He a.s.sured his friends that as far as this might be allowed to depend on his own watchful care over his understanding and his temper, he would preserve himself through the trials of sickness and suffering to the last, such as they could continue to respect and love.

This a.s.surance he faithfully redeemed, by dint of a self-control and a regard for the comfort of others that cannot be too much commended, and which of itself alone would win pardon for many of his irritating faults.

_Waverley_ had just appeared, and every one was reading and discussing it. Scott, who had always been an ardent admirer of Miss Edgeworth, and who said in after-years that he should in all likelihood never have thought of a Scotch novel had he not read Maria Edgeworth's exquisite pieces of Irish character, had desired his publisher to send her a copy on its first appearance, inscribed, "From the Author." She had, however, not yet received this copy when late one night, after having finished hearing the story read aloud to her family, in all the first fervor of her admiration, she sat down to write to the unknown author. Mrs.

Edgeworth, who had been the reader, relates that as she closed the volume Mr. Edgeworth exclaimed, "_Aut Scotus, aut Diabolus_," and with these words Miss Edgeworth began her long and ardently-appreciative letter to the nameless novelist. All Miss Edgeworth's ready, generous, truly Irish enthusiasm breaks forth in this epistle, which is too laudatory, too much written _a la volee_ to be truly critical. But Miss Edgeworth never was critical when her feelings came into play, or were allowed their course unchecked. She narrates to Scott how the story was read aloud, how when ended they all felt depressed to think that they must return to the flat realities of life, and how little disposed they were to read the "Postscript, which should have been a Preface." While she was writing her letter Mrs. Edgeworth opened the book again and noticed this chapter.

"Well, let us hear it," said my father. Mrs. Edgeworth read on. Oh!

my dear sir, how much pleasure would my father, my mother, my whole family, as well as myself, have lost if we had not read to the last page! And the pleasure came upon us so unexpectedly--we had been so completely absorbed, that every thought of ourselves, of our own authors.h.i.+p, was far, far away. I thank you for the honor you have done us and for the pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused, and, believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book, or knew how much we owed you.

Your obliged and grateful

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

To this letter Ballantyne replied; thus, even towards Miss Edgeworth, Scott kept up his anonymity. A little later she tells a friend: "Scott says upon his honor that he had nothing to do with _Guy Mannering_, though he had a little to do, he says, with _Waverley_."

The following winter was spent by the family at Dublin, for the sake of first-cla.s.s medical advice for Mr. Edgeworth. That indefatigable, active-minded old man meantime, though far from well, made experiments on wheel carriages and published a report. There was much gaiety and some interesting society to enliven the winter, but nothing worthy of note is recorded by Miss Edgeworth. Anxiety on account of her beloved father was uppermost in her mind, yet she continued to write, and was busy upon some plays and upon preparing a third edition of _Patronage_.

In this third edition she made some important alterations, changing the _denouement_ to gratify remonstrances that had reached her. She did not like this alteration, and doubted the propriety of making it after a work had gone through two editions. Her father, however, approved, and the public was more satisfied. There was certainly much that was unnatural in the previous course of the tale, in which the newly-married wife refuses to go abroad with her adored husband, but lets him go alone and remains with her father, who, it is true, was in grief, but who had another daughter to console him. This might be Edgeworthian, but it was not human nature; and the incident gave universal offense.

Every new book of value found its way to Edgeworthstown, and was eagerly read and discussed by the family. Miss Austen was soon an established favorite, while Mrs. Inchbald had long been valued. An occasional correspondence was maintained with her. Writing of the _Simple Story_, Miss Edgeworth says:--