Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir by Richard Lovell Edgeworth
page 8 of 123 (06%)

When Richard Edgeworth encouraged his daughter Maria's literary
tastes, he was doubtless mindful how much pleasure and support his
own mother had derived from studying the best authors; and when we
read later of the affectionate terms on which Maria stood with her
various stepmothers and their families, we cannot help thinking that
she must have inherited at least one of the beautiful traits in her
grandmother's character which Richard Edgeworth especially dwells
on: 'She had the most generous disposition that I ever met with; not
only that common generosity, which parts with money, or money's
worth, freely, and almost without the right hand knowing what the
left hand doeth; but she had also an entire absence of selfish
consideration. Her own wishes or opinions were never pursued merely
because they were her own; the ease and comfort of everybody about
her were necessary for her well-being. Every distress, as far as her
fortune, or her knowledge, or her wit or eloquence could reach, was
alleviated or removed; and, above all, she could forgive, and
sometimes even forget injuries.'

Richard's taste for science early showed itself, when at seven years
old his curiosity was excited by an electric battery which was
applied to his mother's paralysed side. He says:--

'At this time electricity was but little known in Ireland, and its
fame as a cure for palsy had been considerably magnified. It, as
usual, excited some sensation in the paralytic limbs on the first
trials. One of the experiments on my mother failed of producing a
shock, and Mr. Deane seemed at a loss to account for it. I had
observed that the wire which was used to conduct the electric fluid,
had, as it hung in a curve from the instrument to my mother's arm,
DigitalOcean Referral Badge