Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 58

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 28, 1826.

After spending four months with you, it is most delightful to me to receive from you such assurances that I have been a pleasure and a comfort to you. I often think of William's most just and characteristic expression, that you have given him a desire to live to advanced age, by showing him how much happiness can be felt and conferred in age, where the affections and intellectual faculties are preserved in all their vivacity. In you there is a peculiar habit of allowing constantly for the compensating good qualities of all connected with you, and never unjustly expecting impossible perfections. This, which I have so often admired in you, I have often determined to imitate; and in this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days, I will, I am resolved, make great progress. "Rosamond at sixty," says Margaret.

We are all a very happy party here, and I wish you could see at this moment sitting opposite to me on sofa and in arm-chair the mother and daughter and grand-child.