father had Laid out for her near to her own room, that had been enlarged and altered together with some alterations to the main building. She was at all times an enthusiastic gardener, finding pleasure and health in the pursuit. "My garden adds very much to my happiness, especially as Honora and all the children have shares in it." Then, too, Miss Edge worth was kept constantly employed attending to the affairs of the tenants; no rapid, easy, or routine task in Ireland. Thus she writes on one occasion:—
This being May-Day, one of the wettest I have ever seen, I have been regaled, not with garlands of May flowers, but with the legal pleasures of the season: I have heard nothing but giving notices to quit, taking possession, ejectments, flittings, &c. What do you think of a tenant who took one of the nice new houses in this town, and left it with every lock torn off the doors, and with a large stone, such as John Langan[1] could not lift, driven actually through the boarded floor of the parlour? The brute, however, is rich; and if he does not die of whisky before the law can get its hand into his pocket, he will pay for this waste.
No wonder she once sighs, "I wish I had time to write some more Early Lessons, or to do half the things I wish to do." With the calls on her time, domestic, philanthropic, and social, it is only amazing that she wrote so much. Her method of working is described by herself in some detail. From its very nature it could not fail to induce a certain stiffness and over-anxious finish. She says:—
Whenever I thought of writing anything, I always told my father my first rough plans; and always, with the instinct of a good critic, he used to fix immediately upon that which would best answer the purpose. "Sketch that, and show it to me." The words, from the
- ↑ John Langan was the steward ; in face and figure the prototype of Thady in Castle Rackvent.
