she was forced to use her own vision, and while busy with the memoirs she allowed herself little of what was now her greatest relaxation, writing letters to her friends:
We are looking to the bright side of every object that remains to us, and many blessings we have still. I am now correcting what I had written of my father's life, and shall be for some months, so shall not write any letters of such length as this.
Bear up and struggle as she would, bitterly and painfully she missed the always kind and ready adviser, the sympathetic intellectual companion, who had stood by her side till now and aided her in every difficult task. She felt like "drifting over an unknown sea, without chart or compass." Nor were her spirits, or those of the family, raised by outward events. Wet seasons had induced famine and typhus-fever, and the tenants were suffering from disease and distress. Then, too, the family had their own private anxieties in the illness of William, Lovell, and Fanny. They were all more or less delicate; most of them had inherited consumptive tendencies, and many months rarely passed without Miss Edgeworth having to record cases of sickness in those about her. These illnesses always absorbed her whole attention, called forth all her kindliness and unselfishness. She was ever the ready willing nurse, the writer of bulletins to those away, the cheerer of long sad hours of suffering. They were weary months those early ones of 1818, and only in her affections did she find comfort. She writes:
I was always fond of being loved, but of late I am become more sensible of the soothing power of affectionate expressions. Indeed, I have reason, although much has been taken from me, to be heartily grateful for all I have left of excellent friends and for much, much unexpected kindness which has been shown to me and mine, not only by persons unconnected by any natural ties with me or them, but from mere acquaintance become friends.
