enough, and observed and conversed with enough eminent minds in my time,
but I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor
uneducated men and women, exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle
heroism, or speaking their simple thoughts, than I ever met with out
of the pages of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect our
real calling unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as
moonshine compared with the education of the heart,"' said the great
teacher. 'Maria did not listen to this without some water in
her eyes,--her tears are always ready when a generous string is
touched,--but she brushed them gaily aside, and said, "You see how it
is: Dean Swift said he had written his books in order that people should
learn to treat him like a great lord; Sir Walter writes his in order
that he might be able to treat his people as a great lord ought to do."'

Years and years afterwards Edward Fitzgerald stayed at Edgeworthstown,
and he also carries us there in one of his letters. He had been at
college with Mr. Frank Edgeworth, who had succeeded to the estate, and
had now in 1828 come to stay with him. The host had been called away,
but the guest describes his many hostesses: 'Edgeworth's mother, aged
seventy-four; his sister, the great Maria, aged seventy-two; and another
cousin or something. All these people were pleasant and kind, the house
pleasant, the grounds ditto, a good library, so here I am quite at home,
but surely must go to England soon.' One can imagine Fitzgerald sitting
in the library with his back to the window and writing his letters
and reading his thirty-two sets of novels, while the rain is steadily
pouring outside, and the Great Authoress (so he writes her down) as busy
as a bee sitting by chattering and making a catalogue of her books. 'We
talk about Walter Scott, whom she adores, and are merry all day long,'
he says. 'When I began this letter I thought I had something to say, but
I believe the truth was I had nothing to do.'