MARIA EDGEWORTH to MISS MARGARET RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 20, 1812.
I am heartily obliged to my dear Sophy—never mind, you need not turn to the direction, it is to Margaret, my dear, though it begins with thanks to Sophy—for being in such haste to relieve my mind from the agony it was in that Fashionable Tales should reach my aunt. I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are none of you angry with me, and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they have read of "The Absentee." I long to hear whether their favour continues to the end and extends to the catastrophe, that dangerous rock upon which poor authors, even after a prosperous voyage, are wrecked, sometimes while their friends are actually hailing them from the shore. I have the Rosamond vase [Footnote: A glass vase which Miss Edgeworth painted for Mrs. Ruxton, in brown, from Flaxman's designs for the Odyssey.] madness so strong upon me, that I am out of my dear bed regularly at half-past seven in the morning, and never find it more than half an hour till breakfast time, so happy am I daubing. On one side I have Ulysses longing to taste Circe's cakes, but saying, "No, thank you," like a very good boy: and on the other side I have him just come home, and the old nurse washing his feet, and his queen fast asleep in her chair by a lamp, which I hope will not set her on fire, though it is, in spite of my best endeavours, so much out of the perpendicular that nothing but a miracle can keep it from falling on Penelope's crown.
Little Pakenham is going on bravely (not two months old), and I am just beginning to write again, and am in "Patronage," and have corrected all the faults you pointed out to me; and Susan, who was a fool, is now Rosamond and a wit.
I suppose you have heard various jeux d'esprit on the marriage of Sir
Humphry Davy and Mrs. Apreece? I scarcely think any of them worth
copying: the best idea is stolen from the bon mot on Sir John Carr,
"The Traveller be_k_nighted."
"When Mr. Davy concluded his last Lecture by saying that we were but in the Dawn of Science, he probably did not expect to be so soon be_k_nighted."
I forget the lines: the following I recollect better:—
To the famed widow vainly bow
Church, Army, Bar, and Navy;
Says she, I dare not take a vow,
But I will take my Davy.
Another my father thinks is better:
Too many men have often seen
Their talents underrated;
But Davy owns that his have been
Duly _Appreec_iated.