Maria Edgeworth

by Helen Zimmern

I have not yet thanked you enough, I feel, for Rollo. Our children all, and we ourselves, delight in him at play and at work, and every way, and we wish to see more of him. If there be any more of him, pray pack him up bag and baggage and send him off by first steamer, steam-haste. By the by, are you or your children acquainted with the elephant who in his haste forgot to pack up his trunk?

If you are not acquainted with him, I shall have the pleasure of introducing him to you and yours.

Meantime, if you wish to be amused, and with what is new and what is true, read Mrs. Wilmot's Memoirs of the Princess Dashkoff, and her own residence in Russia. We know enough of the author to warrant the whole to be true. I do not say that she tells the whole truth, but that all she does tell is true, and what she does not tell she was bound in honor and friendship, and by the tacit, inviolable compact between confidence shown and accepted, never to reveal, much less to publish. Both in the Princess Dashkoff's own memoirs (very able and curious) and in Mrs. Wilmot's continuation (very amusing and new) there are from time to time great gaps, on coming to which the reader cries Ha! Ha! and feels that he must skip over. These gaps are never covered over; and when we come even to dangerous ground we see that we must not turn that way, or hope to get on in utter darkness and our guide deserting—or, if not deserting, standing stock still, obstinately dumb. These memoirs are not a book on which history could absolutely be founded, but a book to which the judicious historian might safely refer illustrations, and even for materials, all which it affords being sound and solid. Much more, in short, may these memoirs be depended upon than any or many of the French varnished and vamped-up Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire.

After reading the book I wrote to Mrs. Wilmot, and after homage due to her talents and her truth, I ventured to express, what I am sure you will feel if you read the volume, some horror, towards the close, at the Princess Dashkoff's accepting for herself or her sister, or for whoever it was, a ball from Orloff, the murderer—that Orloff who with his own hand strangled his Emperor.

Mrs. Wilmot made me but a lame apology for her dear princess, I think, and an odd answer for herself. In the first place, she said, it was so long ago. As if such a murder could be a by-gone tale! or as if thirty or forty or any number of years could purify or cleanse a murderer in the eyes and sense of humanity or justice! In the next place she pleaded that she was so much pleased by Orloff's angel daughter who stood beside him, and then with his parental delight in her beauty, simplicity and elegance in the dance.

Mrs. Wilmot was sure I should have felt as she did, and have forgotten the murderer in the father. But, on the contrary, I am afraid I should have forgotten the father in the murderer; I fear I should have seen only "the vile spot" which would never out of that hand! And oh! that horrible knee—I see it pressing on the body of the breathless Peter; and, through all the music of the ball-room band, methinks I hear "shrieks of an agonizing king."

Possibly in Russia "murder is lawful made by the excess," and may be palliated by the impartial historian's observing, "It was then necessary that the Emperor should CEASE TO BE"—soft synonym for assassination.

I ought not to leave Mrs. Wilmot and the Princess Dashkoff, however this may be, with a tragical and unmerited impression on your mind. I am quite convinced the princess had nothing to do with this horrid affair, or that our countrywoman never would have gone or never would have staid with her.

I can also assure you that when you read these memoirs you will be convinced, as I am, that the Princess Dashkoff was quite pure from all the Empress Catherine's libertine intrigues (I can use no softer phrase). This is proved by facts, not words, for no word does she say on the subject. But the fact is that during Orloff, the favorite Orloff's reign and his numerous successors, the Princess Dashkoff was never at court, banished herself on her travels or at her far-distant territories; she over-rated, idolized Catharine, but was her real friend, not flatterer.

It is scarcely worth telling you, but I will for your diversion mention that I asked Mrs. Wilmot whether the Princess Dashkoff evermore went about in the costume, which she described, of a man's great-coat, with stars and strings over it, at the ball, and with the sentimental old souvenir silk handkerchief about her throat. Yes. But Mrs. Wilmot would not let me laugh at her friend, and I liked her all the better. She defended the oddity by the kindness of the motive. It was not affectation of singularity, but privilege of originality, that should be allowed to a being so feeling and so educated by circumstances and so isolated—so let the ragged handkerchief and the old gloves museumized pass, and even the old overall of the man's coat on a woman and a princess—so be it.