Yours most sincerely,
Maria Edgeworth.
Mention Lockhart's Memoirs of Scott, of which my head and heart were full before this present all-engrossing subject overcame me.
I shall be quite rational again, I am sure, by the time your answer reaches me, so pray do not treat me as quite a hopeless person to write rationally to.
Mrs. Edgeworth desires me to send you her very affectionate remembrances.
I believe, I am almost sure, that I wrote to you, my dear Mr. Ticknor, some months ago while you were on the Continent, to thank you for the present you sent me, through Mr. Norton's means, of an American edition of my works. I thought it beautifully printed and bound, and the engravings excellent, particularly that for Helen, and the vignette for Helen, which we have not in the English edition. I have another American copy of this edition, and I have left yours for life with my brother Francis and my Spanish sister Rosa, who live in a little cottage near Windsor, and have not money to indulge themselves in the luxury of books. I hope you will not be angry with me for so doing; no, I think you will be glad that I made your present give me the greatest possible sum of pleasure. Take into account the pride I felt in saying, Mr. Ticknor sent me these books.
I am ashamed to see that I have come so far in a second sheet, and in spite of all the wonderings at what can Maria be about?
Sense in my next.
In answer to a letter from Mr. Ticknor, describing to her his library, in which the only picture was one of Sir Walter Scott, Miss Edgeworth wrote a reply, of which a portion has been published, but which contains besides an able parallel, or rather contrast, between Washington and Napoleon, worthy of preservation for its own sake, and as a testimony to her unimpaired powers:—
Trim, Nov. 19th, 1840.