ugh she had met with much encouraging criticism in the matter of
her father's life, she still hesitated to publish. "The result of all I
see, think and feel," she tells her stepmother, "is that we should be in
no haste." Down to the very business arrangements the book weighed on
her. She had hitherto left all such details to her father; and her kind
friend Johnson being also dead, she felt yet more undecided how to act.
At every moment, in every detail of her life, she missed her father; but
she was too brave a woman not to struggle with her grief, or not to
adapt herself to altered conditions. Her eyes still caused her much
trouble, and for nearly two years she was obliged to give them almost
entire rest.

But for her patience and fortitude in following the doctor's
injunctions, it seems possible she might have entirely lost her sight.
As it was, a complete recovery took place; and though at times her eyes
were weak, she was able to the end of her life to read, write and work
with ease. At the end of the year 1819 she is able gleefully to tell her
cousin that she must now make up for lost time and read.

"Now that I have eyes to read again, I find it delightful, and I have a
voracious appetite and a relish for food; good, bad and indifferent, I
am afraid, like a half-famished, shipwrecked wretch."

She read all the new literature of the day, and eagerly inquired among
all her friends what they commended. Byron's _Don Juan_ had caused much
talk, but this did not attract her:--

After what you have told me, and after all I hear from every good
judge of _Don Juan_, I never desire to see it. The only regret I
feel upon the subject is that any pearls should be found, as I am
told they may be found, in this intellectual dung-hill. How can the
public allow this drunken, flagitious actor to appear before them,
disgracing genius and the taste of his country? In Scott's last
tales there are all the signs of a master mind, but now and then
all the spasms in the stomach, for which I pity him. I am glad he
is going to try some new scheme, for he has, I think, exhausted
every variety of Scotch character.

It was not till early in 1820 that the memoirs of Mr. Edgeworth were
completed. Having arranged that they should appear at Easter, Miss
Edgeworth resolved to carry out a long-cherished plan, that of visiting
Paris in company with her two young sisters, Fanny and Harriet. At one