Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 74

To MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

Nov 30.

We have had a bevy of wits here&mdash;Mr. Chenevix, Mr. Henry Hamilton, Leslie Foster, and his particular friend Mr. Fitzgerald. Somebody asked if Miss White was a bluestocking. "Oh yes, she is; I can't tell you how blue. What is bluer than blue?"&mdash;"Morbleu," exclaimed Lord Norbury. Miss White herself comes next week.

Dec. 11.

Among other things Miss White entertained my father with was a method of drawing the human figure, and putting it into any attitude you please: she had just learned it from Lady Charleville&mdash;or rather not learned it. A whole day was spent in drawing circles all over the human figure, and I saw various skeletons in chains, and I was told the intersections of these were to show where the centres of gravity were to be; but my gravity could not stand the sight of these ineffectual conjuring tricks, and my father was out of patience himself. He seized a sheet of paper and wrote to Lady Charleville, and she answered in one of the most polite letters I ever read, inviting him to go to Charleville Forest, and he will go and see these magical incantations performed by the enchantress herself.