Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/33

Rh translate Madame de Genlis's Adèle et Théodore. It was her first work intended for publication. The appearance of Holcroft's translation prevented its execution, but neither she nor her father regarded the time bestowed on it as misspent: it gave her that readiness and choice of words which translation teaches. Mr. Day, who had a horror of female authorship, remonstrated with Mr. Edgeworth for having ever allowed his daughter to translate, and, when he heard that the publication was prevented, wrote a congratulatory letter on the event. It was from the recollection of the arguments he used, and from her father's replies, that five years afterwards Miss Edgeworth wrote her Letters to Literary Ladies, though they were not published till after the death of Mr. Day. Indeed, it is possible that had he lived Maria Edgeworth would have remained unknown to fame; so great was her father's deference to his judgment, though sensible that there was much prejudice mixed with his reasons. “Yet,” adds Miss Edgeworth, “though publication was out of our thoughts, as subjects occurred, many essays and tales were written for private amusement.”

The first stories she wrote were some of those now in the Parent's Assistant and Early Lessons. She wrote them on a slate, read them out to her sisters and brothers, and, if they approved, copied them. Thus they were at once put to the test of childish criticism; and it is this, and living all her life among children, that has made Miss Edgeworth's children's stories so inimitable. She understood children, knew them, sympathised with them. Her father's large and ever-increasing family, in which there were children of all ages, gave her a wide and varied audience of youthful critics,