Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 150

To MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Oct. 30, 1847.

I hope the hyacinths "Maria Edgeworth" and "Apollo," and all the blues, will not be destroyed in their journey to you. I spent an hour yesterday doing up dahlias for Rosa, who wrote to me from Dublin that she was heart-sick for flowers.

I advise and earnestly recommend you to read Grantley Manor. It does not, Mr. Butler, end ill, and from beginning to end it is good, and not stupidly good. It is not controversial either in dialogue or story, and in word and deed it does justice to both Churches, in the distribution of the qualities of the dramatis personae and the action of the story. It is beautifully written; pathetic, without the least exaggeration of feeling or affectation. The characters are well contrasted; some nobly high-minded, generous, and firm to principle, religious and moral without any cant; and there are no monsters of wickedness. I never read a more interesting story, new, and well developed.

Nov. 13.

Yesterday morning I received the enclosed note from that most conceited and not over well-bred Mons. de Lamartine. I desired my friend Madame Belloc to use her own discretion in repeating my criticisms on his Histoire des Girondins, but requested that she would convey to him the thanks and admiration of our family for the manner in which he has mentioned the Abbé Edgeworth, and our admiration of the beauty of the writing of that whole passage in the work. At the same time I regretted that he had omitted "Fils de St. Louis," and also that he has not mentioned the circumstance of the crowd opening and letting the Abbé pass in safety immediately from the scaffold after the execution. This it seems to me necessary to note, as part of the picture of the times: a few days afterwards a price was set upon his head, and hundreds were ready for the reward to pursue and give him up. I copied this from Sneyd's Memoir, and the anecdote of the Abbé, when asked at a dinner (Ministerial) in London whether he said the words "Fils de St. Louis," etc., and his answer that he could not recollect, his mind had been so taken up with the event. I think Lamartine, in his note to me, turns this unfairly; and I feel, and I am sure so will you and Mr. Butler, "What an egotist and what a puppy it is!" But ovation has turned his head.