Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 14

To MISS SOPHY RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 2, 1794,
 * having the honour to be the fair
 * day of Edgeworthstown, as is well
 * proclaimed to the neighbourhood
 * by the noise of pigs squeaking,
 * men bawling, women brawling,
 * and children squealing, etc.

I will tell you what is going on, that you may see whether you like your daily bill of fare.

There are, an' please you, ma'am, a great many good things here. There is a balloon hanging up, and another going to be put on the stocks: there is soap made, and making from a receipt in Nicholson's Chemistry: there is excellent ink made, and to be made by the same book: there is a cake of roses just squeezed in a vice, by my father, according to the advice of Madame de Lagaraye, the woman in the black cloak and ruffles, who weighs with unwearied scales, in the frontispiece of a book, which perhaps my aunt remembers, entitled Chemie de goút et de l'odorat. There are a set of accurate weights, just completed by the ingenious Messrs. Lovell and Henry Edgeworth, partners: for Henry is now a junior partner, and grown an inch and a half upon the strength of it in two months. The use and ingenuity of these weights I do, or did, understand; it is great, but I am afraid of puzzling you and disgracing myself attempting to explain it; especially as, my mother says, I once sent you a receipt for purifying water with charcoal, which she avers to have been above, or below, the comprehension of any rational being.

My father bought a great many books at Mr. Dean's sale. Six volumes of Machines Approuvés, full of prints of paper mills, gunpowder mills, machines pour remonter les batteaux, machines pour&mdash;a great many things which you would like to see I am sure over my father's shoulder. And my aunt would like to see the new staircase, and to see a kitcat view of a robin redbreast sitting on her nest in a sawpit, discovered by Lovell, and you would both like to pick Emmeline's fine strawberries round the crowded oval table after dinner, and to see my mother look so much better in the midst of us.


 * If these delights thy soul can move,
 * Come live with us and be our love.