Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 52

MARIA to MRS. EDGEWORTH.

BLACK CASTLE, August 30, 1825.

I calculate that there can be no use in my writing to Dr. Holland, Killarney, at this time of day, because he must have departed that life. However, I write to Mr. Hallam this day with a message to Dr. Holland, if there. If you learn that Dr. Holland can come to Edgeworthstown, you will of course tell me, if it be within the possibility of time and space; I would go home even for the chance of spending an hour with him; therefore be prepared for the shock of seeing me. I do hope he will in his great kindness&mdash;which is always beyond what any one ought to hope&mdash;I do hope he will contrive to go to Edgeworthstown. How delightful to have Lucy sitting up like a lady beside you!

The Lords Bective and Darnley, and Sir Marcus Somerville, and LORD knows who, are all at this moment broiling in Navan at a Catholic meeting, saying and hearing the same things that have been said and heard 100,000,000 times; one certain good will result from it that I shall have a frank for you and save you sevenpence. I will send a number of the New Monthly Magazine as old as the hills to Fanny, with a review of Tremaine, which will interest her, as she will find me there, like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. My Aunt Sophy and Mag are all reading Harry and Lucy, and all reading it bit by bit, the only way in which it can be fairly judged. My aunt's being really interested and entertained by it, as I see she is, quite surpasses my hopes. Feelings of gratitude to Honora should have made me write this specially to her, only that I was afraid she might think that I thought that she thought of nothing but Harry and Lucy, which, upon the word of a reasonable creature, I do not. My aunt is entertained with Clarke's Life, though he says that all literary ladies are horse godmothers. In the Evening Mail of Monday last there are extracts from some speculations of Dr. Barry, an English physician at Paris, on the effect of atmospheric pressure in causing the motion of the blood in the veins. If you see Dr. Holland, ask him about this and its application in preventing the effect of poison.

In Bakewell's Travels in Switzerland there is an account apropos to ennui being the cause of suicide, of the death of Berthollet's son, who shut himself up in a room with a brasier of charcoal; a paper was found on the table with an account of his feelings during the operation of the fumes of the charcoal upon him to the last moment that he could make his writing intelligible.