irits; this
night the lights, the novelty of the scene, and all things together
contributed to make me _more_ than half mad. I gave full scope to a
satirical vein, and suppose ...

Unfortunately, the rest of the letter is lost.

In the midst of her duties and dissipations she managed to find some
little time for more solid pleasures and more congenial work. In her
letters she speaks of nothing with so much enthusiasm as of Rousseau,
whose "Emile" she read while she was in Dublin. She wrote to Everina, on
the 24th of March,--

I believe I told you before that as a nation I do not admire the
Irish; and as to the great world and its frivolous ceremonies, I
cannot away with them; they fatigue me. I thank Heaven I was not so
unfortunate as to be born a lady of quality. I am now reading
Rousseau's "Emile," and love his paradoxes. He chooses a common
capacity to educate, and gives as a reason that a genius will
educate itself. However, he rambles into that chimerical world in
which I have too often wandered, and draws the usual conclusion
that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. He was a strange,
inconsistent, unhappy, clever creature, yet he possessed an
uncommon portion of sensibility and penetration....

Adieu, yours sincerely,
MARY.

It was also during this period that she wrote a novel called "Mary." It
is a narrative of her acquaintance and friendship with Fanny Blood,--her
_In Memoriam_ of the friend she so dearly loved. In writing it she sought
relief for the bitter sorrow with which her loss had filled her heart.

The Irish gayeties lasted through the winter. In the spring the family
crossed over to England and went to Bristol, Hotwells, and Bath. In all
these places Mary saw more of the gay world, but it was only to deepen
the disgust with which it inspired her. Those were the days when men
drank at dinner until they fell under the table; when young women thought
of nothing but beaux, and were exhibited by their fond mothers as so much
live-stock to be delivered to the highest bidder; and when dowagers,
whose flirting season was over, spent all their time at the card-table.
Nowhere were the absurdities and emptiness of polite society so fully
exposed as at these three fashionable resorts. Even the frivolity of
Dublin paled in comparison. Mary's health improved in England. The Irish
climate seems to have specially disagreed wi