Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 97

To MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 29, 1834.

I cannot, my dear Lady of Dunmoe, tell when I can be with you; go I will before autumn runs away with all your leaves, but I am afraid I must let autumn turn them of a sober hue, though I will not let it go to the sear and yellow. In plain prose I am tied down now by rents and business.

We have been dining at Mrs. Blackall's, and there met her pretty sister, Mrs. Johnstone, and very intelligent Captain Johnstone, a Berkshire man from near Hare Hatch, and had a very agreeable day, and much conversation on books and authors, and found that the Diary of an Ennuyée and Female Characters of Shakespeare, both very clever books, are by a lady who was governess to Mrs. Blackall and her sisters. Mrs. Rolle, her mother, read the Diary of an Ennuyée, and wondered when she saw "Mr. and Mrs. R.," and all the places and people they had seen abroad, till she came to the name of Laura, and some lines to her by which she discovered that the author must be their former governess, Miss Murphy, now married to a very clever lawyer. All the woes and heart-breakings are mere fable in the Diary. Her last book, Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, I like; there is a great deal of thought and feeling in it.

Miss Edgeworth's Helen would never have been finished but for the encouragement shown by her sister Harriet, and her interest in the story. It is more of a "novel" than any of its predecessors, has more imagination, and its interest centres more around one person. Its object is to show how many of the troubles of social life arise from want of absolute truthfulness. Its principle is depicted in the explanation of one of its characters: "I wish that the word fib was out of the English language, and white lie drummed after it. Things by their right names, and we should all do much better. Truth must be told, whether agreeable or not."

Helen was well received by the public, but Miss Edgeworth had great diffidence about it. To Dr. Holland she wrote:

I am very glad that you have been pleased with Helen&mdash;far above my expectations! and I thank you for that warmth of kindness with which you enter into all the details of the characters and plan of the story. Nothing but regard for the author could have made you give so much importance to my tale. It has always been my fault to let the moral I had in view appear too soon and too clearly, and I am not surprised that my old fault, notwithstanding some pains which I certainly thought I took to correct it, should still abide by me.