Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth (1894), compiled and edited by Augustus John Cuthbert Hare
Above: Honora Edgeworth, formerly Sneyd, engraving by Benson John Lossing.
Above: Maria Edgeworth, painted by Adam Buck.
Honora Edgeworth (née Sneyd; born 1751, died May 1, 1780) was an eighteenth-century English writer, mainly known for her associations with literary figures of the day, particularly Anna Seward and the Lunar Society, and for her work on children's education. Honora was born in Bath in 1751 and, after the death of her mother in 1756, she was raised by Canon Thomas Seward and his wife Elizabeth in Lichfield, Staffordshire until she returned to her father's house in 1771. There, she formed a close friendship with their daughter Anna Seward. Having had a romantic engagement to John André and having declined the hand of Thomas Day, she married Richard Edgeworth as his second wife in 1773, living on the family estate in Ireland until 1776. There she helped raise his children from his first marriage, including Maria Edgeworth, along with two children of her own. Returning to England Honora fell ill with tuberculosis, which in those days was incurable, dying at Weston in 1780. She is the subject of many of Anna's poems, and with her husband developed concepts of childhood education, resulting in a series of books, such as Practical Education, based on her observations of her stepchildren. Honora is known for her stand on women's rights through her vigourous rejection of Thomas Day's proposal, in which she outlined her views on equality in marriage.
The letter:
MRS. HONORA EDGEWORTH to MARIA.
BEIGHTERTON, NEAR SHIFFNALL,
Oct. 10, 1779.
I have received your letter, and I thank you for it, though I assure you I did not expect it. I am particularly desirous you should be convinced of this, as I told you I would write first. It is in vain to attempt to please a person who will not tell us what they do and what they do not desire; but as I tell you very fully what I think may be expected from a girl of your age, abilities, and education, I assure you, my dear Maria, you may entirely depend upon me, that as long as I have the use of my understanding, I shall not be displeased with you for omitting anything which I had before told you I did not expect. Perhaps you may not quite understand what I mean, for I have not expressed myself clearly. If you do not, I will explain myself to you when we meet; for it is very agreeable to me to think of conversing with you as my equal in every respect but age, and of my making that inequality of use to you by giving you the advantage of the experience I have had, and the observations I have been able to make, as these are parts of knowledge which nothing but time can bestow.
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