Old as I am, and imaginative as I am thought to be, I have really always found that the pleasures I have expected would be great, have actually been greater in the enjoyment than in the anticipation. This is written in my sixty-fourth year. The pleasure of being with Fanny has been far, far greater than I had expected. The pleasures here altogether, including the kindness of old friends and the civilities of acquaintances, are still more enhanced than I had calculated upon by the home and the quiet library and easy-chair morning retreat I enjoy.
On her return to Edgeworthstown she wrote:—
My last visit to universal London confirms to my own feelings your eulogium. I never was so happy there in my life, because I had, besides all the external pleasures, the solid satisfaction of a home there, and domestic pleasures, without which I should soon grow aweary of the world, and wish the business of the town were done. It is most gratifying to me, at such a distance, to hear and to believe that such kind and cultivated friends as you miss my company and wish for my future return. I should be very sorry if I were told this minute that I was never to see London again, and yet I am wondrous contented and happy at home.
It is a curious circumstance, but a fact of frequent observation, that large families are often more united than small ones. The Edgeworths were a case in point. They had that devoted affection, that blind belief in one another, that often distinguishes a clan. They preferred each other's society to that of strangers; they regarded themselves as beings apart; what one did, the others approved; harmony and good will reigned supreme. With so many different families living under one roof, it was a rare and curious fusion, this home party, of which one of the brothers said that "each star is worthy of separate observation for its serenity, brilliancy or magnitude; but it is as a constellation they claim most regard, linked together by strong attachment and moving in harmony through their useful course."
It was as a star of the first magnitude in this constellation that Miss Edgeworth loved to move and have her being, and she chose to be set there rather than shine in brilliancy alone. Miss Edgeworth, the woman, must always be thought of in connection with her home and home attachments. To love, shrouded in the quiet obscurity of domestic life, was the secret of existence to this simple-minded nature.
That Helen was liked by the home circle was a real pleasure to its author. She was anxious for criticism and took all she received in good part. "I am a creature," she once said, "that can take advice, can be the better for it, and am never offended by it." The family approval given, the manuscript was despatched to London with more confidence than she had ever expected to feel again in a literary work. Lockhart managed the business arrangements, for to this she did not feel equal, and when asked if the book should be in two or three volumes, replied:—
I have satisfied my own conscience, which is my point, as I know that far from having stretched a single page, or a single sentence, to make out a third volume, I have cut as much as ever I could—cut it to the quick; and now it matters not whether it be printed in three or in two volumes. If tiresome to the ear in three, it would be equally so in two, and would look worse to the eye.
The reason why her new story was not an Irish one she gives in a letter to a brother in India:—
I should tell you beforehand that there is no humor in it and no Irish character. It is impossible to draw Ireland as she now is in a book of fiction—realities are too strong, party passions too violent to bear to see, or care to look at their faces in the looking-glass. The people would only break the glass and curse the fool who held the mirror up to nature—distorted nature, in a fever. We are in too perilous a case to laugh: humor would be out of season, worse than bad taste. Whenever the danger is passed, as the man in the sonnet says, "We may look back on the hardest part and laugh." Then I shall be ready to join in the laugh. Sir Walter Scott once said to me, "Do explain to the public why Pat, who gets forward so well in other countries, is so miserable in his own." A very difficult question; I fear above my power. But I shall think of it continually, and listen, and look, and read.
Things were once more in a bad way in that unhappy country, and Miss Edgeworth saw great distress all around her. A letter written at that time might almost be written to-day:—