In his ‘Life of Lever’ Dr Fitzpatrick states that Lever set out in 1844 on his driving tour through Ireland, with the intention of paying a formal visit to Miss Edgeworth. There is no evidence that this visit was paid. In a preface to ‘The Knight of Gwynne,’ the author declares his acquaintanceship with Miss Edgeworth arose out of a letter she wrote to him correcting a mistake he had made as to the authorship of an epigram on Sir William Gladowes (afterwards Lord Newcomen). Almost in the same breath he admits that he has no memory for dates, and he couples this admission with a regret that he never kept a note-book. Miss Edgeworth’s tardy reply did not reach Charles Lever till the summer of 1845, when he was lingering at Carlsruhe.
“Carlsruhe in Baden, Hof von Holland, _Aug_. 19, 1845.
“Dear Madam,--Your letter addressed to me in Dublin followed me here into the heart of the Black Forest, where I have been sojourning for some time past. I have really no words to speak my gratitude for the kindness which dictated such a letter,--so full of flattering encouragement, so abounding in expressions of good cheer. It is not because I have met with so little approval from the Press of my own country that I set great store by your criticisms,--though even the contrast has its consolations,--but that I begin to feel confidence under an approval from you, which no praise from one less competent could inspire. Your kindness, too,--like every real kindness,--had the merit of an _apropos_. I was beginning to feel unusually depressed about the fortunes of my book. I had received so many hints, based on misconceptions, of the characters and the plot, that I found, or fancied I found, I had been misrepresenting my own intentions, praising what I deprecated, and apologising for what I felt condemnatory. Fancy, then, the delight I experienced on hearing that you had read me aright--nay, more, developed in full the shadowy and vague forms my weaker hand only dared to trace, but could not venture to colour! I am not able to tell you how full of hope, how full of ambition, you have left me,--how totally you have routed the growing despondency against which, unassisted, I struggled in vain. It is not, believe me, that your flattery has made me _tête montée_; but, even taking it as mere flattery, I can say to myself, ‘It is Miss Edgeworth, after all.’ If I am destined to do what may be worthy, I shall date the effort from the day I received your letter,--a day which made me prouder than I ever felt before, and happier than any praise hereafter can make me.”