elicious malaprops,
the ultimate return of the Clonbrony family to their estate, which, to
the optimistic Irish mind, represents the end of all their troubles and
the inauguration of a new era of prosperity and justice. For one thing,
it is so much more in keeping that an uncultured peasant, rather than a
thoughtful and philosophical mind, should believe in so simple a
solution to evils of long standing; that what we should have felt an
error in Miss Edgeworth becomes right and natural in Larry. The
suggestion for this conclusion came from Mr. Edgeworth, and he wrote a
letter for the purpose. Miss Edgeworth, however, wrote one too, and her
father so much preferred hers that it was chosen to form the admirable
finale to the _Absentee_.

What perfect self-control Miss Edgeworth possessed may be judged from
the fact that the whole of the _Absentee_, so full of wit and spirit,
was written in great part while she was suffering agonies from
toothache. Only by keeping her mouth full of some strong lotion could
she in any way allay the pain, yet her family state that never did she
write with more rapidity and ease. Her even-handed justice, her stern
love of truth, are markedly shown in this novel. She does not exaggerate
for the sake of strengthening her effects; thus, for example, she does
not make all her agents bad, as some writers would have done; indeed,
one is a very model middle-man. She is always far more careful to be
true than to be effective, she uses the sober colors of reality, she
paints with no tints warmer than life. The chief and abiding merit of
her Irish scenes is not that of describing what had not been described
before, but of describing well what had been described ill.

_Vivian_ was written with extreme care and by no means with the same
rapidity, yet it cannot be compared to the _Absentee_. Here Miss
Edgeworth was once more clogged by her purpose and unable for a moment
to lose sight of it. "I have put my head and shoulders to the business,"
she writes to her cousin, "and if I don't make a good story of it, it
shall not be for want of pains." It proved no easy task, and only the
fact that her father so much approved it, upheld her. "My father says
_Vivian_ will stand next to _Mrs. Beaumont_ and _Ennui_. I have ten
days' more work on it, and then huzza! ten days' more purgatory at
other corrections, and then a heaven upon earth of idleness and
reading, which is my idleness." _Vivian_ is a particularly ag