Edgeworth

“ Edgeworth was one of those people born to get their own way. Everyone seems to have felt the influence of his strong character. It was not only with his family and his friends that he held his own—the tenants and the poor people rallied to his command. To be sure, it sounds like some old Irish legend to be told that Mr. Edgeworth had so loud a voice that it could be heard a mile off, and that his steward, who lived in a lodge at that distance from the house, could hear him calling from the drawing-room window, and would come up for orders. ”

“ Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' a London rout, or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking to an old friend, or in her own home among books and relations and interests of every sort, Miss Edgeworth seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of mind and presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. I think her warmth of heart shines even brighter than her wit at times. ”

“ It is well for us that we don’t live on their smiles and curtsies. They went off in the Marchioness of Twickenham’s superb equipage. I had a full view of her as she drew up the glass, and a more melancholy countenance than hers I have seldom seen. Lord Oldborough hoped my father was well—but never mentioned Godfrey. The marchioness does not know me, but she turned at the name of Percy, and I thought sighed. Now, Rosamond, I put that sigh in for you—make what you can of it, and of the half-heard mysterious whisper. ”

“ Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three or four lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, some of us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters of existence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than his tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure of sentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriage must have taken most people by surprise. ”

“ But Honor displays no more sign of gratification at this lavish display of admiration, than if it had been an every day occurrence of her life. She gives each anxious solicitor a dance without any of the condescending airs of other ladies, and her programme is almost full when some one brushes through the crowd and addresses her hastily.
"Miss Edgeworth, not too late am I?"
She looks up and sees Vivian Standish before her, as handsome a picture as ever riveted any one's gaze. She smiles a bewitching smile of assumed despair. ”

“ It is one of the most delightful features in Miss Edgeworth, that in her the dignity of the author is sustained by the moral worth of the individual, a combination unhappily not common.
Visits to and from neighbours or friends, more or less eminent, visits from nephews and nieces, letters from all quarters of the globe, prevented the life at Edgeworthstown from ever becoming stagnant, even if a home so full of young people could have been devoid of life. ”

“ The reader who has not had the experience, can, without being too imaginative, readily understand the sentiment that so completely controlled Honor Edgeworth. All the bright, happy illusions in which she had basked of late had rested on the doubtful, yet hopeful hypothesis that Guy loved her. How many times she argued against herself, striving to find occasions on which he had shown any indifference towards her, but in the end, a sweet smile em eloped her face, and the pleasantest conviction of a young life seemed to thrust itself upon her. ”

“ Miss Edgeworth's conversation was always ready, as full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine.... She was disposed to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could. And in her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and admiration.... About herself as an author she seems to have no reserve or secrets. ”

“ Dear ladies, is not this now a very sudden motion of our young lord's for Ireland?—Lud a mercy! Miss Nugent, I'm sure your motions is sudden enough; and your dress behind is all, I'm sure, I can't tell how.'—'Oh, never mind,' said the young lady, escaping from her; 'it will do very well, thank you, Petito.'
'It will do very well, never mind,' repeated Petito muttering to herself, as she looked after the ladies, whilst they ran downstairs. 'I can't abide to dress any young lady who says never mind, and it will do very well. ”

“ Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, pays a respectful tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeable conversation, her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness and address. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do justice to this lady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, her partisanship. The portrait prefixed to her letters is that of a dignified person with an oval face and dark eyes, the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, her graceful figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of the period. ”

“ When the family, after a short absence, reassembled at Edgeworthstown, it required all her inherited activity of mind, all her acquired self-command, to enable her to keep up her spirits on re-entering that house in which for her the light was quenched. It was well for her not only that work was the purpose in life of all that family, that no drones were suffered in that household, but that her work had been planned for her by her father, and that, in settling down to it, she was obeying his commands. ”

“ We live just the same kind of life that we used to do at Edgeworthstown, and though we move amongst numbers are not moved by them, but feel independent of them for our daily amusement. All the Phantasmas I had conjured up to frighten myself, vanished after I had been here a week, for I found that they were but phantoms of my imagination, as you very truly told me. We live very near the Downs, where we have almost every day charming walks, and all the children go bounding about over hill and dale along with us. ”

“ Edgeworth accepted the mission, and in a letter to a friend in England, dated 21st December 1792, explained that this was his reason for remaining in France. "I prepare myself," he added, "for death, for I am convinced that popular rage will not allow me to survive one hour after that tragic end." He fully expected, indeed, to be torn to pieces by the mob, and he made his will before leaving his mother and sister (the former ignorant of his danger) for the Temple. Rigidly searched at the gate, lest he should carry poison for the King, Edgeworth, bursting into tears, fell at Louis's feet. ”

“ R.L. Edgeworth, the father of the Miss Edgeworth. It is altogether a great name. In 1813, I recollect to have met them in the fashionable world of London (of which I then formed an item, a fraction, the segment of a circle, the unit of a million, the nothing of something) in the assemblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry and Lady Davy's, to which I was invited for the nonce. I had been the lion of 1812; Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Staël, with 'the Cossack,' towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year. ”

“ Any girl may boast of being free from susceptibilities of a disastrous kind, but few girls à la mode to-day can overcome the resistless fascination of a dreamy waltz, and Honor Edgeworth who was the very poetry of motion in herself, was lost to everything else but her waltz at this moment—how well Vivian Standish guided, she thought—how well he held himself! ”

“ Edgeworth, and of course Miss Edgeworth's youngest brother, has a family of little ones who seem to enjoy the freedom of the library as much as their elders. To set these little people right if they are wrong j to rise from her table to fetch them a toy, or even to save a servant a journey; to mount the steps and find a volume that escapes all eyes but her own, and, having done so, to find exactly the passage wanted,—are hourly employments of this most unspoiled and admirable woman. ”

“ Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, all his daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and delight our play-time, and that of a thousand other little children in different parts of the world. People justly praise Miss Edgeworth's admirable stories and novels, but from prejudice and early association these beloved childish histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as a writer for children that we venture to consider her here. ”

“ When they came opposite to a hosier’s shop, in Oxford-street, the stranger thanked him, and desired to be set down. “This is my home,” said he; “or this was my home, I ought to say,” pointing to his shop as he let down the coach-glass. “A sad warning example I am! But I am troubling you, sir, with what no way concerns you. I thank you, sir, for your civility,” added he, turning away from Maurice, to hide the tears which stood in his eyes: “good day to you.” ”

“ Edgeworth, though he took to his studies, and made valuable friendships, was often at Black Bourton. He fell in love with Elers's daughter, Anna Maria, eloped with her to Scotland, and married her in 1763 while still an undergraduate. His father forgave him after a time, and the ceremony was repeated in due form a few months later. The young couple passed a year at Edgeworthstown, apparently after the birth of his eldest son at Black Bourton in 1764. His mother died soon afterwards, and in 1765 he returned to England, and took a house at Hare Hatch, near Maidenhead. ”

“ The Edgeworth family, said to have come originally from Edgware, Middlesex, had settled in Ireland about 1583. Edward Edgeworth, bishop of Down and Connor, left a fortune to his brother, Francis Edgeworth, clerk of the hanaper. The descendants of Francis Edgeworth were men of talent and vivacity, given to marrying early and often, acquiring fortunes with their wives, increasing them at court or in military service, and spending them in play. ”

“ Miss Edgeworth does not paint him in repellent colors, but lets him reveal his baseness little by little, and rather against his will, until the final catastrophe presents him in all his native vileness. His easy and agreeable social manners, his gentlemanly mode of feeling and acting, due, no doubt, to a long inheritance of gentlemanly traditions, are shown with profound penetration. It is a part of Miss Edgeworth's power to evince how "great effects from trivial causes spring;" she makes us vividly realize all the circumstances under which her events occur. ”

“ Puffit, the milliner, the printer’s devil, and a stern-looking man, to whom Mrs. Puffit, as she came in, said, pointing to Betty Williams and Miss Warwick, “There they are—do your duty, Mr. Constable: I’ll swear to my lace.”
“And I’ll swear to my black thumbs,” said the printer’s devil.
“I saw the lace hanging out of her pocket, and there’s the marks of my fingers upon it, Mr. Constable.”
“Fellow!” cried Miss Hodges, taking the constable by the arm, “this is my apartment, into which no minion of the law has a right to enter; for, in England, every man’s house is his castle.” ”

“ In an incredibly short time all things and people found themselves in their proper places, and the new Mrs. Edgeworth soon proved herself a fitting person to hold the reins of household government. Only a month after the marriage Miss Edgeworth can tell her cousin:
We are indeed happy: the more I see of my friend and mother, the more I love and esteem her, and the more I feel the truth of all that I have heard you say in her praise. So little change has been made in the way of living, that you would feel as if you were going on with your usual occupations and conversation amongst us. ”

“ Flora was rather surprised when our once cynical hero begged the favour of her hand, and led her to dance a reel. M. Pasgrave would have been in ecstasy if he had seen his pupil’s performance.
“And now, my dear Forester,” said Dr. Campbell, as his ward returned to claim his promise of a general amnesty, “if you do not turn out a coxcomb, if you do not ‘mistake reverse of wrong for right,’ you will infallibly be a very great man. Give me a pupil who can cure himself of any one foible, and I have hope of him. What hope must I not have of him who has cured himself of so many!” ”

“ She thought of the good Sister Frances, who had been exposed by her means to the unrelenting persecution of the malignant and powerful Tracassier. She thought of her poor little pupils, now thrown upon the world without a protector. Whilst these ideas were revolving in her mind one night as she lay awake, she heard the door of her chamber open softly, and a soldier, one of her guards, with a light in his hand, entered; he came to the foot of her bed, and, as she started up, laid his finger upon his lips.
“Don’t make the least noise,” said he in a whisper; “those without are drunk, and asleep. ”

“ The gas burned very low within, and with its subdued light only helped to make Honor still more like a spectre than she was. Guy, standing quite close to the panes, could see the gray pallor that had come over her agitated face, her eyes wore that far-off look that is not of earth, as if she were peering through the impenetrable, into mysteries beyond, he leaned forward breathlessly, noiselessly, and looked into the room, she was alone—quite alone, looking pale, and ill, and tired—Oh, how he longed to comfort and protect her! ”

“ Richard Lovell Edgeworth was born at Bath in 1744, and spent his early years partly in England, partly in Ireland, receiving a careful education. In his youth he was known as "a gay philosopher," in the days when the word philosopher was still used in its true sense of a lover of wisdom. Light-hearted and gay, good-humoured and self-complacent; possessed of an active and cultivated mind, just and fearless, but troubled with neither loftiness nor depth of feeling, Richard Lovell Edgeworth was nevertheless a remarkable personage, when the time at which he lived is taken into account. ”