Maria Edgeworth

“ He told me that, whenever my son saw a handsome horse, or a handsome carriage in the street, he always exclaimed, "That is an English horse or an English carriage!" And that, even down to a pair of shoe-buckles, everything that appeared to be good of its kind was always pronounced by him to be English. "his sort of party prejudice," said Rousseau, "if suffered to become a ruling motive in his mind, will lead to a thousand evils; for not only will his own country, his own village or club, or even a knot of his private acquaintance, be the object of his exclusive admiration ”

“ Such a life as Richard Edgeworth's seems to me to be more instructive than even that excellent moral guide-book written by Sir John Lubbock, The Uses of Life, because abstract maxims take less hold of uncultivated or unanalytical minds than the portrait of a man of flesh and blood. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress reaches many hearts which are unmoved by an ordinary sermon, and Edgeworth's life was indeed a progress, a constant striving not only to improve himself but to help others onward in the right way. ”

“ In writing, cool and careful, as if on his guard against his natural liveliness of imagination; he was so cautious to avoid exaggeration, that he sometimes repressed enthusiasm. The character of his writings, if I mistake not, is good sense; the characteristic of his conversation was genius and vivacity—one moment playing on the surface, the next diving to the bottom of the subject. When anything touched his feelings, exciting either admiration or indignation, he poured forth enthusiastic eloquence, and then changed quickly to reasoning or wit. ”

“ Instead of the assemblage of artificers in manufactories, such as we see in Birmingham, each artisan in Paris, working out his own purposes in his own domicile, must in his time "play many parts," and among these many to which he is incompetent, either from want of skill or want of practice: so that, in fact, even supposing French artisans to be of equal ability and industry with English competitors, they are at least a century behind, by thus being precluded from all the miraculous advantages of the division of labour. ”

“ When we remember that it was Richard Edgeworth, the father of Maria, who trained and encouraged her first efforts in literature, we feel that we owe him a debt of gratitude; but our interest is increased when we read his Memoirs, for we then find ourselves brought into close contact with a very intelligent and vigorous mind, keen to take part in the scientific experiments of the day, while his upright moral character and earnest and well-directed efforts to improve his Irish property win our admiration ”

“ Doubtless Edgeworth felt, as Charles Lamb expresses it: 'Deaths overset one, and put one out long after the recent grief. Two or three have died within the last two twelvemonths, and so many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a picture, reads an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this person in preference to every other; the person is gone whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every departure destroys a class of sympathies. ”

“ Some with transcendent talents waste these in futile projects; others make them a source of misery, by indulging that overweening anxiety for fame which ends in disappointment, and excites too often the powerful passions of envy and jealousy; others, too humble, or too weak, fret away their spirits and their life in deploring that they were not born with more abilities. But though so many lament the want of talents, few actually derive as much happiness as they might from the share of understanding which they possess. ”

“ It was impossible, when moral principles are instilled into the human mind, when people are regularly taught their duty to God and man, that abominable tenets can prevail to the subversion of subordination and society. ”

“ He usually gave one life, reserving to himself the option of adding another —the son, perhaps, of the tenant—if he saw that the tenant deserved it by his conduct. This sort of power to encourage and reward in the hands of a landlord is advantageous in Ireland. It acts as a motive for exertion; it keeps up the connection and dependence which there ought to be between the different ranks, without creating any servile habits, or leaving the improving tenant insecure as to the fair reward of his industry. ”

“ The conviction is full and strong on my own mind, that a father's confiding kindness, and plain sincerity to a young man, when he first sets out in the world, make an impression the most salutary and indelible. ”

“ The British Government seem to have thought it best at this time to pursue a laissez faire policy in Ireland, in order to convince the Irish of their weakness, and to show them that, although a bundle of sticks when loosened allows each stick to be used for beating, and it may therefore be argued that sticks, being meant for fighting, should never be bound in a bundle, yet each single stick may easily get broken. Of course the Government intended to intervene before it was too late, and to suggest to the Irish that it was time to think of a union with their stronger neighbours. ”

“ This friend, who as yet knew nothing of my father's intentions, began to speak of the marriage of some other person, and to exclaim against the folly and imprudence of any man's marrying in such disturbed times. "No man of honour, sense or feeling, would incumber himself with a wife at such a time!" ”

“ By waking the bodies of their friends, the human corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of Ireland, but is associated with pleasure in their minds by the festivity of these nocturnal orgies. An insurrection of such people, who have been much oppressed, must be infinitely more horrid than anything that has happened in France; for no hired executioners need be sought from the prisons or the galleys. And yet the people here are altogether better than in England. ”

“ In 1794 he wrote of his son Lovell: 'He has been employed in building and other active pursuits, which seldom fall to the share of young men, but which seem as agreeable to him as the occupations of a mail-coachman, a groom, or a stable-boy are to some youths. I am every day more convinced of the advantages of good education.' He adds: 'One of my younger boys is what is called a genius—that is to say, he has vivacity, attention, and good organs. ”

“ Edgeworth was, at first, benumbed by grief, and unable to take an interest in his former pursuits; but in the society of his wife's family he gradually recovered cheerfulness, and began to consider his wife's dying advice to marry her sister. He remarks: 'Nothing is more erroneous than the common belief, that a man who has lived in the greatest happiness with one wife will be the most averse to take another. ”

“ All the time he kept both parties in good humour, because each expected to have him their own at last. After stating many arguments in favour of what appeared to him to be the advantages of the Union, he gave his vote against it, because, he said, he had been convinced by what he had heard in that House this night, that the Union was at this time decidedly against the wishes of the great majority of men of sense and property in the nation. He added that if he should be convinced that the opinion of the country changed at the final discussion of the question, his vote would be in its favour. ”

“ It is curious to note the difference in tone which there is between the children's books written by him and Maria and those of the second half of the nineteenth century. Our duty to our neighbour is the Edgeworth watchword, while our duty to God is the watchword of Miss Yonge and her school of writers. The swing of the pendulum is constantly passing from morality to religion and back again, because both are required for the perfect life. ”

“ No man could be more sensible than he was of the consolatory, fortifying influence of the Christian religion in sustaining the mind in adversity, poverty, and age. No man knew better its power to carry hope and peace in the hour of death to the penitent criminal. When from party bigotry it has happened that a priest has been denied admittance to the condemned criminal, my father has gone to the county gaol to soothe the sufferer's mind, and to receive that confession on which, to the poor Catholic's belief, his salvation depended. ”

“ Among the experiments which Edgeworth made in the management of his children was that: 'Formerly' (Maria writes) 'from having observed how apt children are to dispute and quarrel when they are left much together, and from fear of the strong becoming tyrants, and the weak slaves, it had been thought prudent to separate them a good deal. It was believed that they would consequently grow fonder of each other's company, and that they would enjoy it more as they grew more reasonable, from not having the recollection of anything disagreeable in each other's tempers. ”

“ In Ireland the habits of the common people are already too lax with regard to truth. The difference of religion, and the facilities of absolution, present difficulties so formidable to their moral improvement as to require all the counteracting powers of education, example, public opinion, and law. ”

“ A painter, a friend of ours, who had been that day at our house, copying some old family portraits, happened to be in the street at that instant, and called out to the mob, "Gentlemen, it is yellow! Gentlemen, it is not orange!" In consequence of this happy distinction they let go the coachman; and the same man who had mounted guard at the gate, came up with his friends, rescued the carriage, and surrounding the coachman with their pikes brought him safely into the yard. The pole of the carriage having been broken in the first onset, the housekeeper could not leave Edgeworth Town till morning. ”

“ Day's deep-seated prejudice in favour of savage life was somewhat shaken by this view of want and misery, which philosophers of a certain class in London and Paris chose at that time to dignify by the name of simplicity. The modes of living in the houses of the gentry were much the same in Ireland as in England. ”

“ My father never wasted his time in deploring the want of that which he could by exertion acquire. Nor did he suffer fame in any pursuit to be his first object.'
We feel that we are in the moral atmosphere of Paley and Butler when she adds:—'Far beyond the pleasures of celebrity, or praise in any form, he classed self-approbation and benevolence: these he thought the most secure sources of satisfaction in this world.' This is the spirit of the Eighteenth Century, the clear cold tone of the moral philosopher, not the enthusiastic impulse of the fervid theologian, of Pusey, Keble, or Newman. ”

“ Science, which flourished independently of politics, and which was often useful and essential to the rulers, had meanwhile been encouraged, and had prospered. The discoveries and inventions of men of science showed that the same positive quantity of talent existed in France as in former times, though appearing in a new form.'
The charms of Paris and its society were rudely broken by Edgeworth receiving one morning a visit from a police officer requiring him immediately to attend at the Palais de Justice. ”

“ They cursed also without scruple their own Directory for sending them, after they had, as they boasted, conquered the world, to be at last beaten on an Irish bog. Officers and soldiers joined in swearing that they would never return to a country where they could find neither bread, wine, nor discipline, and where the people lived on roots, whisky, and lying.'
Maria ends this exciting chapter of the Memoirs with these moral reflections: 'At all times it is disadvantageous to those who have the reputation of being men of superior abilities, to seclude themselves from the world. ”

“ Darwin at Lichfield that Edgeworth made some friendships which influenced his whole life. At the Bishop's Palace, where Canon Seward lived, he first met Miss Honora Sneyd, who was brought up as a daughter by Mrs. Seward. He was much struck by her beauty and by her mental gifts, and says: 'Now for the first time in my life, I saw a woman that equalled the picture of perfection which existed in my imagination. I had long suffered much from the want of that cheerfulness in a wife, without which marriage could not be agreeable to a man with such a temper as mine. ”

“ Though not convinced of the strict legality of the meeting, he thought a reform in parliament so important and desirable an object, that to the probability or chance of obtaining this great advantage it was the wisdom of a true patriot to sacrifice punctilio, and to hazard all, but, what he was too wise and good to endanger, the peace of the country. Lord Charlemont accepted the office of president, specially with the hope that he and his friends might be able to influence the convention in favour of proceedings at once temperate and firm. ”

“ For the good taste, wit, and polished style which had characterised French literature before the Revolution there was no longer any demand, and but few competent judges remained. The talents of the nation had been forced by circumstances into different directions. At one time, the hurry and necessity of the passing moment had produced political pamphlets and slight works of amusement, formed to catch the public revolutionary taste. At another period, the contending parties, and the real want of freedom in the country, had repressed literary efforts. ”

“ Edgeworth wrote a long letter about scientific matters to Darwin, and kept his most important news to the last: 'I am going to be married to a young lady of small fortune and large accomplishments,—compared with my age, much youth (not quite thirty) , and more prudence—some beauty, more sense—uncommon talents, more uncommon temper,—liked by my family, loved by me. ”

“ The interest we take in hearing an uncommon fact often depends on our belief in its truth. Introduce it into fiction, and this interest ceases, the reader stops to question the truth or probability of the narrative, the illusion and the dramatic effect are destroyed; and as to the moral, no safe conclusion for conduct can be drawn from any circumstances which have not frequently happened, and which are not likely often to recur. In proportion as events are extraordinary, they are useless or unsafe as foundations for prudential reasoning. ”

“ The taste for literature, and for judging of literary composition, was by this means formed and exercised in a large family, including a succession of nine or ten children, who grew up during the course of these twenty-five years. Stories of children exercised the judgment of children, and so on in proportion to their respective ages, all giving their opinions, and trying their powers of criticism fearlessly and freely. ”