Edgeworths Town Nov. 5th. 1848 – Dr. Sir I write to you this day to express my regret for having written to you yesterday too precipitately and I fear <captiously> or at least in a manner very different from that in which I am now impelled to write after having seen as I have done within this last hour the article in your Miscellany to which my name is prefixed and in which my writings are ~~ I will not say Eulogised for that might imply the idea of a French Eloge but this Review is English in the warm sincere spirit of kindness {1} and of benevolence in the largest sense of the word – in this spirit we feel that it is written – I say We meaning my whole family to whom it has given heartfelt and headfelt satisfaction – and to myself a high gratification, which I thought myself at 82 too old & too cold, to enjoy as I do – “But unworthy he (or she) the voice of praise to hear” “That sweetest music to an honest ear” Unworthy<!> who has the mean affectation to pretend not to be gratified not to be raised in their own esteem by such approbation – I could not have truly proposed to myself such good & high views as are by this writer ascribed to me, if I were not thus as I am highly, deeply gratified at this, the close {2} of my long life from being assured by such an enlightened such an able judge that I have not lived in vain – that I have not written in vain that have really accomplished some useful some amiable purposes – I am delighted to be made by this friendly good Genius to believe that I have aided in doing permanent good – in raising the love & the value for the <minor> domestic virtues of the kind which ask no reward of praise or fame – but which are most truly their own reward I beg Dr Sir that you will be so obliging as to convey to the Writer of your Review (whoever it may be) all which I have here endeavored to express – (inadequately –) I cannot give the warmth to my expressions of gratitude {3} which I truly feel – I should be glad to know ~~) if it be not indiscreet to ask ~~) to whom I am so much obliged? for so consigning my name “to long posterity” – in the manner in which my best friends, now surrounding me feel, as I do, that they would most wish to have <his > name preserved in the memory of the good – I am Dr. Sir your much obliged Maria Edgeworth To R. Bentley Eq.re