Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 88

MARIA to MRS. MARY SNEYD.

BANGOR FERRY, March 31, 1813.

"I will go and write a few lines of a letter to my dear Aunt Mary."

"Oh! why should you write now, my dear? You have nothing new to tell her."

"Nothing new, but I love her, and wish to write to her; if I did not love her, I should be worse than Caliban."

"Well, write only a few lines."

"That is just what I mean to do, and go on with my letter at any odd place where we stop the night."

You have heard of all we saw at Howth, so I go on from Holyhead. Breakfasted in company with Mr. Grainger: he has lived in very good company abroad, and told us a variety of entertaining anecdotes: Caulaincourt, now Due de Vincennes, was brought up in the family of the Prince de Condé, l'enfant de la Maison, the playfellow of the Due d'Enghien. Buonaparte employed Caulaincourt to seize the Due d'Enghien; the wretch did so, and has been repaid by a dukedom.

We asked how the present Empress was liked in France. "Not at all by the Parisians; she is too haughty, has the Austrian scornful lip, and sits back in her carriage when she goes through the streets." The same complaint was made against Marie Antoinette. On what small things the popularity of the high and mighty depends!

Josephine is living very happily, amusing herself with her gardens and her shrubberies. This ci-devant Empress and Kennedy and Co., the seedsmen, are, as Mr. Grainger says, in partnership; she has a licence to send to him what shrubs and seeds she chooses from France, and he has licence to send cargoes in return to her. Mr. Grainger will carry over my box to Madame Recamier.

At the inn door at Bangor Ferry we saw a most curiously packed curricle, with all manner of portmanteaus and hat-boxes slung in various ingenious ways, and behind the springs two baskets, the size and shape of Lady Elizabeth Pakenham's basket. A huge bunch of white feathers was sticking out from one end of one of these baskets; and as we approached to examine it, out came the live head of a white peacock&mdash;a Japan peacock and peahen. The gentleman to whom the carriage belonged appeared next, carrying on a perch a fine large macaw. This perch was made to fasten behind the carriage. The servant who was harnessing the horses would not tell to whom the carriage belonged. He replied to all inquiries, "It belongs to that there gentleman."

We have enjoyed this fine day: had a delightful walk before dinner in a hanging wood by the water-side&mdash;pretty sheep-paths, wood anemonies in abundance, with their white flowers in full blow. Two ploughs going in the field below the wood: very cheerful the sound of the Welshmen's voices talking to their horses. The ploughing, giving the idea of culture and civilisation, contrasted agreeably with the wildness of the wood and mountains. Good-night.

Thursday.

This morning we set out for the slate quarries; we took our time, full time to see everything at leisure. The railways are above six miles long; they are very narrow. I had formed an idea of their being much more magnificent, but in this country canals and railways are made as useful and as little splendid as possible. I was surprised to see these railways winding round the rocks, and going over heaps of rubbish where you would think no wheelbarrow even could go.

From the slate-cutting we went to the slate quarries. We had been admiring the beauty of the landscape. My father did not say anything to raise my expectations, but when we arrived near the place, he took me by the hand, and led me over a heap of rubbish, on the top of which there was a railway. We walked on until we came between two slate mountains, and found ourselves in the midst of the quarries. It was the most sublime sight of all the works of man I ever beheld. The men looked like pigmies. There is a curious cone of grayish-coloured slate standing alone, which the workmen say is good for nothing; but it is good for its picturesque appearance. A heavy shower of hail came on, which, falling between the rifts of the rocks, and blown by the high wind, added to the sublimity of the scene: we were comfortably sheltered in one of the sheds.

Finding that Mr. Worthington was at Liverpool, my father determined to go there, and we have come on to Conway. During a storm of wind, thunder, and lightning last night it snowed just enough to cover the tops of the mountains with white, to increase the beauty of the prospect for us: they appeared more majestic from the strong contrast of bright lights and broad shades: the leaves of the honeysuckles all green in the hedges, fine hollies, primroses in abundance: it was literally spring in the lap of winter. Penmanmawr has, my father says, considerably altered its appearance, since he knew it first, from the falling of masses of rock, and the crumbling away of the mighty substance. Cultivation has crept up its sides to a prodigious height. A little cottage nestled just under the mountain's huge stone cap. The fragments of rock that have rolled down, some of them across the road, are ten times the size of the rock in Mr. Keating's lawn, and in contrast with this idea of danger are sheep and lambs feeding quietly; the lambs looking not larger than little Francis's deceased kittens Muff and Tippet.

We reached Conway at six o'clock. The landlady of the Harp Inn knew my father, and recollected Lovell and my Aunt Ruxton. The boy to whom Lovell used to be so good, and who stopped my father on Penmanmawr to tell him that Lovell had given him Lazy Lawrence, was drowned with many others crossing the Ferry in a storm. The old harper who used to be the delight of travellers is now in a state of dotage. There was no harper at Bangor: the waiter told us "they were no profit to master, and was always in the way in the passage; so master never lets them come now."

In the midst of all the sublime and beautiful I had a happy mixture of the comic, for we had a Welsh postillion who entertained us much by his contracted vocabulary, and still more contracted sphere of ideas. He and my father could never understand one another, because my father said "quarry," and the Welshman said "querry"; and the burthen of all he said was continually asking if we would not like to be "driven to Caernarvon."

Friday morning, seven o'clock, dressed, and ready to go on with my scribbling. I assure you, my dear kind Aunt Mary, it is a great pleasure to me to write this letter at odd minutes while the horses are changing, or after breakfast or dinner for a quarter of an hour at a time, so that it is impossible that it should tire me. I owe all my present conveniencies for writing to various Sneyds: I use Emma Sneyd's pocket-inkstand; my ivory-cutter penknife was the gift of my Aunt Charlotte, and my little Sappho seal a present of Aunt Mary's.

For miles we have had beautiful hollies in the hedges; I wish my Aunt Charlotte would be so kind as to have a few small hollies out of Wilkinson's garden planted in the new ditch between Wood's and Duffy's; also some cuttings of honeysuckles and pyracanthus&mdash;enough can be had from my garden. I must finish abruptly.