Thank you, thank you, thank you, for liking the two Clays. But pray don't envelop all the country gentlemen of England in English Clay.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, says my father, for liking Lady Jane Grandville. Her ladyship is his favorite, but nobody has ever mentioned her in their letters but you. I cannot believe that you ever resembled that selfish, hollow Lady Angelica. Would you ever have guessed that the character of Rosamond is like—M. E.? All who know me intimately say it is as like as possible. Those who do not know me intimately would never guess it.
Harrington came next. The idea of writing a story of which the hero should be a Jew was not her own, but suggested by an unknown correspondent in the United States, a Jewish lady, who gently reproached her for having so often made Jews ridiculous, and begged she would write a story that should treat of a good Jew. Scarcely was it finished than she began Ormond. In February, 1817, she read the first chapter to her father as they were driving out to pay a visit, the last Mr. Edgeworth ever paid. His health had become a source of grave anxiety, and though he masked all his sufferings with cheerfulness and touching unselfishness, it was too evident that his case was serious. The interest and delight he took in Ormond, and his desire to see the story finished, encouraged Miss Edgeworth to go on.
Her stepmother writes:—
In all her anguish of mind at the state of his health, Maria, by a wonderful effort of affection and genius, produced those gay and brilliant pages, some of the gayest and most brilliant she ever composed.... The admirable characters of King Corny and Sir Ulick O'Shane, and all the wonderful scenes full of wit, humor and feeling, were written in agony of anxiety, with trembling hand and tearful eyes. As she finished chapter after chapter, she read them out, the whole family assembling in their father's room to listen to them. Her father enjoyed these readings so exceedingly as to reward her for the wonderful efforts she made.
Enfeebled as he was by illness, and often while enduring pain, Mr. Edgeworth nevertheless continued as before to revise his daughter's manuscript with "an acuteness, a perseverance of attention of which I cannot bear to think," she writes in after years. "He would work at it in his bed for hours together, once at an end for six hours, during an interval of sickness and exquisite pain."
Thanks to the kindness of her publisher, she was able on Mr. Edgeworth's birthday (May, 1817) to put the printed volumes into his hands. It was the last book of hers to which he was to write a preface, and it was characteristic, like his others:—
In my seventy-fourth year I have the satisfaction of seeing another work of my daughter brought before the public. This was more than I could have expected from my advanced age and declining health. I have been reprehended by some of the public critics for the notices which I have annexed to my daughter's works. As I do not know their reasons for this reprehension, I cannot submit even to their respectable authority. I trust, however, the British public will sympathize with what a father feels for a daughter's literary success, particularly as this father and daughter have written various works in partnership. The natural and happy confidence reposed in me by my daughter puts it in my power to assure the public that she does not write negligently. I can assert that twice as many pages were written for these volumes as are now printed.
And now, indulgent reader, I beg you to pardon this intrusion, and with the most grateful acknowledgments I bid you farewell forever.
Richard Lovell Edgeworth.