Maria Edgeworth

“ When my daughters were with Maria at Paris, they described to me the readiness with which she would return from the company of the greatest philosophers and wits of the day to superintend her young sisters' dress, or arrange some party of pleasure for them. "We often wonder what her admirers would say, after all the profound remarks and brilliant witticisms they have listened to, if they heard all her delightful nonsense with us." Much as she was gratified by her "success" in the society of her celebrated contemporaries, she never varied in her love for Home. ”

“ In the spring she spent some weeks at Trim, where her sister Lucy and Dr. Robinson were with her. She seemed unusually agitated and depressed in taking leave of her sister Harriet and Mr. Butler, but said as she went away, "At Whitsuntide I shall return."
Only a few weeks before her death Miss Edgeworth wrote: *⁠*⁠* Our pleasures in literature do not, I think, decline with age; last 1st of January was my eighty-second birthday, and I think that I had as much enjoyment from books as I ever had in my life. ”