Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 128

MARIA to MISS MARGARET RUXTON at HYÈRES.

TRIM, March 20, 1843.

Thank you, thank you, my dear Margaret, for all your anxiety about me. I am strengthening. We have no news or events; we live very happily here. On Friday last, being St. Patrick's Day, there were great doings here, and not drunken doings, not drowning the shamrock in whisky, but honouring the shamrock with temperance rejoicings and music, that maketh the heart glad without making the head giddy or raising the hand against law or fellow-creatures. Leave was asked by the Temperance Band and company to come into Mr. Butler's lawn to play a tune or two, as they were pleased to express it, for Miss Edgeworth. The gates were thrown open, and in came the band, a brass band, with glittering horns, etc., preceded by Priest Halligan, whom you may recollect, in a blue and white scarf floating graceful, and a standard flag in his hand. A numerous crowd of men, women, and children came flocking after, kept in order by some Temperance Society staff officers with blue ensigns.

I, an invalid, was not permitted to go out to welcome them, but I stood at my own window, which I threw open, and thanked them as loud as I could, and curtseyed as low as my littleness and my weakness would allow, and was bowed to as low as saddle-bow by priests on horseback and musicians and audience on foot: Harriet on the steps welcoming and sympathising with these poor people; and delightful it was to see Mr. Butler bareheaded shaking hands with the priest, who almost threw himself from his horse to give him his hand.

Mr. Tuite, that dear good old gentleman, died a few days ago at Sonna, in his ninety-seventh year; his good son, in his note to my mother announcing the event, says, "It is a comfort to think that to the very last he had all the comfort, spiritual and earthly, that he could need or desire."

Miss Bremer, of Stockholm, has published a novel, translated by Mary Howitt, which is one of the most interesting, new, and truly original books I have seen this quarter-century. Its title does not do it justice. Our Neighbours: which might lead you to expect a gossiping book, or at best something like Annals of my Parish&mdash;tout au contraire; it is sketches of family life, a romantic family, admirably drawn&mdash;some characters perhaps a little overstrained, but in the convulsions of the overstraining giving evidence of great strength&mdash;beg, buy, or borrow it, if you can, and if not, envy us who have it.

Envy us, also, La Vie du Grand Condé, written in French, by Lord Mahon, not published, only a hundred copies struck off, and he has honoured me with a present of a copy. Of the style and correctness of the French I am not so presumptuous as to pretend to be a competent judge, but I can say that in reading it I quite forgot it was by an Englishman, and never stopped to consider this or that expression, and I wish, dear Margaret, that you had the satisfaction of reading this most interesting, entertaining book.

Dickens's America is a failure; never trouble yourself to read it; nevertheless, though the book is good for little, it gives me the conviction that the man is good for much more than I gave him credit for; a real desire for the improvement of the lower classes, and this reality of feeling is, I take it, the secret, joined to his great power of humour, of his ascendant popularity.