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26 MARIA EDGEWORTH.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Amokgst The Changes Which Have Taken Pla...
surprise and delight of once more embracing his son , of whom he might have said , with grateful reverence , He was lostand is found V
, Mr . Edgeworth in some measure recovered this illness , but it had fatally undermined his strength ; feeling thishewith his wife
winter Maria , of and 1815 some to Dublin of the , younger for the advantage part of the of , medical famil , y , went advice in from the ,
his friend , the late Sir Philip Crampton . Here , under the pressure of much illness , he , in the successive springs of 1815-16 carried out ,
, with the assistance of his son William , an extensive set of public experiments on wheel carriages , which he had promised to try for
the Royal Dublin Society . He returned home much reduced , and suffering severely from pain and weakness . He amused himself by
superintending * the publication of a volume of dramas which Miss Edgeworth now brought out , but his sight gradually failed ; but by the
kindness of his . wife , his ever-ready secretary , he said that without trouble to himself , or apparently to her , he could still convey his
thoughts to friends , with whom , nearly to the last , he corresponded . He submitted with touching gentleness to become dependent willingly _,
as he used to declare , on the affection of his family .. He earnestly longed to see the completion of ' Harrington and ' -Ormond _? two
tales which Miss Edgeworth had begun to write . The desire to gratify him , always the strongest stimulus , enabled her to make an
exertion on winch , she afterwards looked back with astonishment , and even in her harrassed and excited state of feeling to finish the
last of her works with which he was to be associated . Every evening she read to him what she had written in the morning" , whilst he
listened with inconceivable interest , " pursuing , " she says , " the labor of correction with an acuteness and perseverance of which I cannot
bear to think . " He had always prayed that his intellectual faculties might be
spared to the last . The petition was granted , and the latest efforts of his strength were speaking parting words of counsel and
consolation to each of his afflicted family . He expired on the 15 th of June , 1817 . At the hazard of being tedious we will offer to our readers
an extract from a letter written two days _afterwards . "better " My than dear any one , Your could goddaug , as she never hter has left told him . for you a all moment the sad , —but particulars did she
the say last enoug moment h of my , or mother of the ' s looks tender of affection care , and and of the gratitude comfort he she gave gave lier him , even to supported when life seemed him for to fourteen be expiring hours ? His he gentl head on breathed her bosom his , last where When she had all
was quite over , she was carried , fainting y to her room by our . dear old h admirable ousekeepe . , and * put to bed . * * * Her conduct now is still more
talking " Maria of him supports , his merit herself , Ms better virtues than , his we kindness thought : — _j > he ossible cannot . Our live comfort too much is in our hearts . "
The calmness of Maria had indeed appeared supernatural ,
inconsistent as every one knew it to be with her agonized state of feeling .
26 Maria Edgeworth.
26 MARIA EDGEWORTH .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1858, page 26, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091858/page/26/
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