Richard Lovell Edgeworth

Richard Lovell Edgeworth

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Title: Richard Lovell Edgeworth A Selection From His Memoir
Author: Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Editor: Beatrix L. Tollemache
Release Date: October 27, 2005 [EBook #16951]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD
LOVELL EDGEWORTH ***

Produced by Marjorie Fulton

Richard Lovell Edgeworth A SELECTION FROM HIS MEMOIRS
EDITED BY BEATRIX L. TOLLEMACHE (HON. MRS. LIONEL
TOLLEMACHE)

RIVINGTON, PERCIVAL & CO. KING STREET, COVENT
GARDEN
LONDON
1896
By THE SAME AUTHOR
Engelberg, and Other Verses. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Jonquille, or, The Swiss Smuggler. Translated from the French of
MADAME COMBE. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Grisons Incidents in Olden Times. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
LONDON RIVINGTON, PERCIVAL & CO.
LIFE IS AN INN
THERE is an inn where many a guest May enter, tarry, take his rest.
When he departs there's nought to pay, Only he carries nought away.
'Not so,' I cried, 'for raiment fine, Sweet thoughts, heart-joys, and hopes
that shine, May clothe anew his flitting form, As wings that change the
creeping worm.
His toil-worn garb he casts aside, And journeys onward glorified.'
B. L. T.

RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH
CHAPTER 1
Some years ago, I came across the Memoirs of Richard Lovell
Edgeworth in a second-hand bookshop, and found it so full of interest

and amusement, that I am tempted to draw the attention of other readers
to it. As the volumes are out of print, I have not hesitated to make long
extracts from them. The first volume is autobiographical, and the
narrative is continued in the second volume by Edgeworth's daughter
Maria, who was her father's constant companion, and was well fitted to
carry out his wish that she should complete the Memoirs.
Richard Lovell Edgeworth was born at Bath in 1744. He was a shining
example of what a good landlord can do for his tenants, and how an
active mind will always find objects of interest without constantly
requiring what are called amusements; for the leisure class should be
like Sundays in a week, and as the ideal Sunday should be a day when
we can store up good and beautiful thoughts to refresh us during the
week, a day when there is no hurry, no urgent business to trouble us, a
day when we have time to rise above the sordid details of life and enjoy
its beauties; so it seems to me that those who are not obliged to work
for their living should do their part in the world by adding to its store of
good and wise thoughts, by cultivating the arts and raising the standard
of excellence in them, and by bringing to light truths which had been
forgotten, or which had been hidden from our forefathers.
Richard Edgeworth was eminently a practical man, impulsive, as we
learn from his imprudent marriage at nineteen, but with a strong sense
of duty. His mother, who was Welsh, brought him up in habits of thrift
and industry very unlike those of his ancestors, which he records in the
early pages of his Memoirs. His great-grandmother seems to have been
a woman of strong character and courage in spite of her belief in fairies
and her dread of them, for he writes that 'while she was living at
Liscard, she was, on some sudden alarm, obliged to go at night to a
garret at the top of the house for some gunpowder, which was kept
there in a barrel. She was followed upstairs by an ignorant servant girl,
who carried a bit of candle without a candlestick between her fingers.
When Lady Edgeworth had taken what gunpowder she wanted, had
locked the door, and was halfway downstairs again, she observed that
the girl had not her candle, and asked what she had done with it; the
girl recollected, and answered that she had left it "stuck in the barrel of
black salt." Lady Edgeworth bid her stand still, and instantly returned

by herself to the room where the gunpowder was, found the candle as
the girl had described, put her hand carefully underneath it, carried it
safely out, and when she got to the bottom of the stairs dropped on her
knees, and thanked God for their deliverance'
When we remember that it was Richard Edgeworth, the father of Maria,
who trained and encouraged her first efforts in literature, we feel that
we owe him a debt of gratitude; but our interest is increased when we
read his Memoirs,