Another American visitor, in the same year of 1836, the Rev. William B.
Sprogue, writes: [Footnote: European Celebrities, 1855.]
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The Edgeworth house is a fine spacious old mansion, with a splendid lawn stretching before it, and everything to indicate opulence and hereditary distinction…. Miss Edgeworth was the first person to meet me; and she immediately introduced me to her mother, Mrs. Edgeworth, her father's fourth wife, and her sister, Miss Honora Edgeworth. Miss Edgeworth, in her personal appearance, was below middle size; her face was exceedingly plain, though strongly indicative of intellect; and though she seemed to possess great vigour of body as well as of mind, it was, after all, the vigour of old age. I supposed her to be about sixty-five, but I believe she was actually on the wrong side of seventy. Her stepmother, Mrs. Edgeworth, must have been, I think, rather younger than Maria, and was not only a lady of high intelligence, but of great personal attractions, and withal of a very serious turn of mind. As Miss Edgeworth knew that my visit was to be limited to a single day, she told me almost immediately that she wished to know in what way she could contribute most to my gratification,—whether by remaining in the house or walking over the grounds. She talked upon a great variety of subjects, but there was nothing about her that had ever any affinity to showing off or trying to talk well: she evidently did not know how to talk otherwise. Circumstances led her to speak of her experience with some of her publishers. She mentioned that one of them had repeatedly requested her to abate from the amount which he had engaged to pay her, and that she had done so; but at length, after she had told him explicitly to make proposals he would abide by, he wrote her a letter, saying that he wished another abatement, and that he found that on the whole he had lost by her works; and she then wrote him in reply, that in consequence of the loss he had sustained, she would transfer her publications to other hands. He afterwards earnestly requested that she would excuse him for having thus written, and desired to retain the works; but she was inflexible, and he very angry. Her former publisher, she said, when he found himself dying, called for a letter to her which was then unfinished, and requested that there should be inserted a promise of ten or twelve hundred pounds more than he had engaged to give her for one of her works; for it had been so much more profitable to him than he expected, that he could not die in peace till he had done justly by her. And his heirs executed his will in accordance with this dying suggestion.
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Home interests, home cares, and home sorrows were henceforth increasingly to occupy Miss Edgeworth's life.
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MARIA to MISS RUXTON.
LOUGH GLYN, Sept. 16, 1836.
You may suppose how I felt the kindness of your note. You are now my friend of longest standing and dearest parentage in this world; and in this world, in which I have lived nearly three quarters of a century, I have found nothing one quarter so well worth living for as old friends.
We go to Moore Hall to-morrow. We had here yesterday a party at dinner, all exquisite in their way; Lord and Lady Dillon and Miss Dillon, Lord Oranmore and his son, Mr. Brown, and two Miss Stricklands and their brothers; and coloured fireworks in the evening: of all of which you shall hear more when we meet. Breakfast-bell ringing in my ears.