Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 95

MARIA EDGEWORTH to MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, May 16, 1814.

My father's contentment at Lovell's return has done him more good than all the advice of all the surgeons, I do believe, now that the danger is over. If you have suffered from suspense in absence, yet, my dear aunt, you have been spared the torturing terrors we have felt at the sight of the daily, hourly changes, so rapid, so unaccountable: one day, one hour, all hope, the next all despair! The lamp of life, now bright, starting up high and brilliant, then sinking suddenly almost to extinction; the flame flitting, flickering, starting, leaping, as it were, on and off by fits. Some day we shall talk it over in security; now I can hardly bear to look back to it.

All that has passed in France in the last few weeks! a revolution without bloodshed! Paris taken without being pillaged! the Bourbons, after all hope and reason for hope had passed, restored to their capital and their palaces! With what mixed sensations they must enter those palaces! I daresay it has not escaped my aunt that the Venus de Medicis and Apollo Belvidere are both missing together: I make no remarks. I hate scandal&mdash;at least I am not so fond of it as the lady of whom it was said she could not see the poker and tongs standing together without suspecting something wrong! I wonder where our ideas, especially those of a playful sort, go at some times? and how it is that they all come junketing back faster than there is room for them at other times? How is it that hope so powerfully excites, and fear so absolutely depresses all our faculties?

Aug. 24.

Sneyd has received a very polite letter from the Marquis de Bonay, who is now ambassador at the Court of Denmark. Mrs. O'Beirne and the Bishop, who like Mons. de Bonay so much, and who have not heard of him for such a length of time, will be delighted to hear of his emerging into light and life. What is more to our purpose is, that he says he can furnish Sneyd with some notes for the Abbé Edgeworth's life, which he had once intended to write himself: he did put a short notice of his life into the foreign papers at Mittau. He says he never knew so perfect a human creature as the Abbé.

I had a letter from Dr. Holland this morning saying at the beginning I should be surprised at its contents; and so I was. The Princess of Wales has invited him to accompany her abroad as her physician! After consulting with his friends he accepted the invitation.