The Absentee Quotes

“Remember, we can judge better by the conduct of people towards others than by their manner towards ourselves.”
― Maria Edgeworth, The Absentee

“Make it a rule, you know, to believe only half the world says.”
― Maria Edgeworth, The Absentee

“there were several SQUIREENS, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded to the BUCKEENS, described by Young and Crumpe. SQUIREENS are persons who, with good long leases, or valuable farms , possess incomes from three to eight hundred a year; who keep a pack of hounds; TAKE OUT a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her ladyship said), and almost always before they know anything of law or justice! Busy and loud about small matters; JOBBERS AT ASSIZES , combining with one another, and trying upon every occasion, public or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their superiors, and the terror of those below them. In the usual course of things, these men are not often to be found in the society of gentry; except , perhaps, among those gentlemen or noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their tables; or who find it for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their favourites , or to propose and CARRY jobs for them on grand juries. At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the county.”
― Maria Edgeworth , The Absentee

“Formerly, a few families had set the fashion. From time immemorial everything had, in Dublin, been submitted to their hereditary authority; and conversation, though it had been rendered polite by their example, was, at the same time, limited within narrow bounds. Young people, educated upon a more enlarged plan, in time grew up; and, no authority or fashion forbidding it, necessarily rose to their just place, and enjoyed their due influence in society. The want of manners, joined to the want of knowledge in the new set, created universal disgust: they were compelled, some by ridicule, some by bankruptcies, to fall back into their former places, from which they could never more emerge. In the meantime, some of the Irish nobility and gentry who had been living at an unusual expense in London—an expense beyond their incomes— were glad to return home to refit; and they brought with them a new stock of ideas, and some taste for science and literature, which, within these latter years, have become fashionable, indeed indispensable, in London. That part of the Irish aristocracy, who, immediately upon the first incursions of the vulgarians, had fled in despair to their fastnesses in the country, hearing of the improvements which had gradually taken place in society, and assured of the final expulsion of the barbarians, ventured from their retreats, and returned to their posts in town. So that now,' concluded Sir James, 'you find a society in Dublin composed of a most agreeable and salutary mixture of birth and education, gentility and knowledge, manner and matter; and you see pervading the whole new life and energy, new talent, new ambition, a desire and a determination to improve and be improved—a perception that higher distinction can now be obtained in almost all company, by genius and merit, than by airs and dress.”
― Maria Edgeworth, The Absentee