by the public--so that the cause
of truth cannot suffer, and I presume you are too much of a
philosopher to mind the trifling mortification to your vanity which
the detection of a mistake might occasion. You know that some
sensible person has observed, only in other words, that we are
wiser to-day than we were yesterday.... I think that only little or
weak minds are so dreadfully afraid of being ever in the wrong.
Those who feel that they have resources, that they have means of
compensating for errors, have never this horror of being found in a
mistake.

In the spring of 1813 Mr., Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth visited London, where
they were much lionized. According to contemporaries it was the
daughter for whom the attentions were mainly meant, though she, of
course, deemed them intended for her father. Crabb Robinson said that
Miss Edgeworth gained the good will of every one during this visit. Not
so her father; his "cock-sureness," dictatorial and dogmatic manner gave
much offense in society.

They met every one worth meeting during their brief stay, and many
famous names glint across the pages of the one letter that has been
preserved treating of this London visit. Perhaps it was the only one
written, for she describes themselves as being, from morning till night,
in a whirl of gaiety and sight-seeing, "that how we got through the day
and night with our heads on our shoulders is a matter of astonishment to
me.... But I trust we have left London without acquiring any taste for
dissipation or catching the rage for finery and fine people." In this
one letter there are, unfortunately, none of those delightfully detailed
descriptions of persons and events that she gave from France. Among the
distinguished persons she met, Lord Byron is mentioned. Singularly
enough she dismisses him with just the last remark that one would have
expected concerning the poet, about whose good looks, at least, the
world was unanimous: "Of Lord Byron, I can only tell you that his
appearance is nothing that you would remark." He, on his part, was more
favorably impressed. He writes in his journal:--

I had been the lion of 1812. Miss Edgeworth and Mme. de Stael with
_The Cossack_, towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the
succeeding year. I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a
clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk and restless.
He was seventy, but