Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 51

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 9, 1825.

With my whole soul I thank you for your most touching letter to my mother, so full of true resignation to GOD'S will, and of those feelings which He has implanted in the human heart for our greatest happiness and our greatest trials. "Fifty-five years!" How much is contained in those words of yours! I loved him dearly, and well I might, most kind he ever was to me, and I felt all his excellent qualities, his manners, his delightful temper. How little did I think when last I saw his kind looks bent upon me that it was for the last time!

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, August 1825.

Sir Walter Scott, punctual to his promise, arrived on Friday in good time for dinner; he brought with him Miss Scott and Mr. Crampton. I am glad that kind Crampton had the reward of this journey; though frequently hid from each other by clouds of dust in their open carriage, they had as they told us never ceased talking. They like each other as much as two men of so much genius and so much benevolence should, and we rejoice to be the bond of union.

Scarcely had Crampton shaken the dust from his shoes when he said, "Before I eat, and what is more, before I wash my hands, I must see Lucy." He says that he has now no doubt that, please GOD, and in all the humility of hope and gratitude I repeat it, she will perfectly recover.

Captain and Mrs. Scott and Mr. Lockhart were detained in Dublin, and did not come till eleven o'clock, and my mother had supper, and fruit, and everything refreshing for them. Mrs. Scott is perfectly unaffected and rather pretty, with a sweet confiding expression of countenance and fine mild most loving eyes.

Sir Walter delights the hearts of every creature who sees, hears, and knows him. He is most benignant as well as most entertaining; the noblest and the gentlest of lions, and his face, especially the lower part of it, is excessively like a lion; he and Mr. Crampton and Mr. Jephson were delightful together. The school band, after dinner by moonlight, playing Scotch tunes, and the boys at leap-frog delighted Sir Walter. Next day we went to the school for a very short time and saw a little of everything, and a most favourable impression was left. It being Saturday, religious instruction was going on when we went in. Catholics, with their priest, in one room; Protestants, with Mr. Keating, in the other.

More delightful conversation I have seldom in my life heard than we have been blessed with these three days. What a touch of sorrow must mix with the pleasures of all who have had great losses! Lovell, my mother, and I, at twelve o'clock at night, joined in exclaiming, "How delightful! O! that he had lived to see and hear this!"

Maria Edgeworth and her sister Harriet accompanied Sir Walter and Miss Scott, Mr. Lockhart and Captain and Mrs. Scott to Killarney. They travelled in an open caleche of Sir Walter's, and Captain Scott's chariot, changing the combination from one carriage to another as the weather or accident suggested. When some difficulty occurred about horses Sir Walter said, "Swift, in one of his letters, when no horses were to be had, says, 'If we had but had a captain of horse to swear for us we should have had the horses at once;' now here we have the captain of horse, but the landlord is not moved even by him."

The little tour was most enjoyable, and greatly was it enjoyed. Neither Sir Walter nor Miss Edgeworth were ever annoyed with the little discomforts of travel, and they found amusement in everything, shaming all with whom they came in contact. Their boatman on the lake of Killarney told Lord Macaulay twenty years afterwards that the pleasure of rowing them had made him amends for missing a hanging that day!

Mrs. Edgeworth relates:

The evening of the day they left Killarney, Sir Walter was unwell, and Maria was much struck by the tender affectionate attention of his son and Mr. Lockhart and their great anxiety. He was quite as usual, however, the next day, and on their arrival in Dublin, the whole party dined at Captain Scott's house in Stephen's Green; he and Mrs. Scott most hospitably inviting, besides Maria and Harriet, my two daughters, Fanny and Mrs. Barry Fox, who had just returned from Italy, and my two sons, Francis and Pakenham, who were coming home for the holidays. It happened to be Sir Walter's birthday, the 15th of August, and his health was drunk with more feeling than gaiety. He and Maria that evening bade farewell to each other, never to meet again in this world.

Twenty-five years later we find Miss Edgeworth writing to Mr. Ticknor, how, in imagination, she could still meet Sir Walter, "with all his benign, calm expression of countenance, his eye of genius, and his mouth of humour&mdash;such as genius loved to see him. His very self I see, feeling, thinking, and about to speak."