Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 68
To C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Jan. 1, 1808.
A Happy New Year to you, my dear Sneyd. It is so dark, I can hardly see to write, and it has been pouring such torrents of rain, hail, and snow, that I began to think, with John Langan, that the "old prophecies found in a bog" were all accomplishing, and that Slievegaulry was beginning to set out[1] on its proposed journey. My mother has told you about these predictions, and the horror they have spread through the country entirely. The old woman who was the cause of the mischief is, I suppose, no bigger than a midge's wing, as she has never been found, though diligent search has been made for her. Almost all the people in this town sat up last night to receive the earthquake.
We have had the same physiognomical or character-telling fishes that you described to Honora. Captain Hercules Pakenham brought them from Denmark, where a Frenchman was selling them very cheap. Those we saw were pale green and bright purple. They are very curious: my father was struck with them as much, or more, than any of the children; for there are some wonders which strike in proportion to the knowledge, instead of the ignorance, of the beholders. Is it a leaf? Is it galvanic? What is it? I wish Henry would talk to Davy about it. The fish lay more quiet in my father's hand than could have been expected; only curled up their tails on my Aunt Mary's; tolerably quiet on my mother's; but they could not lie still one second on William's, and went up his sleeve, which I am told their German interpreters say is the worst sign they can give. My father suggested that the different degrees of dryness or moisture in the hands cause the emotions of these sensitive fish, but after drying our best, no change was perceptible. I thought the pulse was the cause of their motion, but this does not hold, because my pulse is slow, and my father's very quick. It was ingenious to make them in the shape of fish, because their motions exactly resemble the breathing, and panting, and floundering, and tail-curling of fish; and I am sure I have tired you with them, and you will be sick of these fish.[2]
Footnotes edit
- ↑ An old woman had, before Christmas, gone about the neighbourhood saying that, on New Year's Day, Slievegaulry, a little hill about five miles from Edgeworthstown, would come down with an earthquake, and settle on the village, destroying everything.
- ↑ It was afterwards ascertained that these conjuring fish had been brought from Japan by the Dutch, and were made of horn cut extremely thin. Their movements were occasioned, as Mr. Edgeworth supposed, from the warm moisture of the hand, but depended upon the manner in which they were placed. If the middle of the fish was made to touch the warmest part of the hand, it contracted, and set the head and tail in motion.