SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Letter to Joanna Baillie_, 1823, in the former’s ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G. Lockhart. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1871. * * * * * [Sidenote: Conversation.] Miss Edgeworth was delightful, so clever and sensible. She does not say witty things, but there is such a perfume of wit runs through all her conversation as makes it very brilliant. SIDNEY SMITH: Quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by his daughter, Lady Holland. London: Longmans, Green & Co. * * * * * We could but liken her to the benevolent fairy from whose lips were perpetually dropping diamonds; there was so much of kindly wisdom in every sentence she uttered. S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’ * * * * * In the evening Miss Edgeworth delightful--not from display, but from repose and unaffectedness--the least pretending person of the company. THOMAS MOORE: _Extract from Diary_, 1818. * * * * * Miss Edgeworth, with all her cleverness, is anything but agreeable. The moment any one begins to speak, off she starts too, seldom more than a sentence behind them, and in general continues to distance every speaker. Neither does what she says, though of course very sensible, at all make up for this over-activity of tongue. THOMAS MOORE: _Extract from Diary_, 1831, in ‘Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence,’ edited by Lord John Russell. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1854. * * * * * In conversation we found her delightful. She was full of anecdotes about remarkable people, and often spoke from her personal knowledge of them. Her memory, too, was stored with valuable information; and her manner of narrating was so animated that it was difficult to realize her age. In telling an anecdote of Mirabeau, she stepped out before us, and, extending her arms, spoke a sentence of his in the impassioned manner of a French orator, and did it so admirably that it was quite thrilling. ELIZA FARRAR: ‘Recollections of Seventy Years.’ Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866. * * * * * There was a life and spirit about her conversation, she threw herself into it with such _abandon_, she retorted with such brilliant repartee, and, in short, she talked with such extraordinary flow of natural talent, that I don’t know whether anything of the kind could be finer. GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Activity.] There was a charm in all she looked and said and did. Incessant and yet genial activity was a marked feature of her nature. She seemed to be as nearly ubiquitous as a human creature can be, and always busy; not only as a teacher of her younger brothers and sisters (she was nearly fifty years older than one of them), but as the director and controller of the household. S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’