A little more ambition and the spur of poverty might have made Edgeworth better known as an inventor of useful machines:  it is curious to remark how nearly he invented the bicycle.  He saw the advantage that light railways would be to Ireland, but the breath of mechanical life, steam, as a power, he did not foresee.

He might have written a book on ‘The Domestic Life,’ so fully had he mastered the secrets of a happy home.  He was naturally passionate, but had trained himself to be on his guard against his temper, and was always anxious to improve and to correct any bad habit or fault:  even in old age he was constantly on the watch lest bodily infirmities should lead to moral deterioration.  He was not too proud to own when he had made mistakes, but used the experience he had gained, and carefully studied his own character and the circumstances which had been most beneficial in forming it.  He controlled his expenses as prudently as his temper, and would not allow his inventive faculties to lead him into unjustifiable outlays.  His daughter mentions that ’when he was a youth of nineteen, an old gentleman, who saw him passing by his window, said of him, judging by the liveliness of his manner and appearance, “There goes a young fellow who will in a few years dissipate all the fortune his prudent father has been nursing for him his whole life.”

’The prophecy was, by a kind neighbour, repeated to him, and, as I have heard him say, it made such an impression as tended considerably to prevent its own accomplishment.

’He acquired the habit of calculating and forming estimates most accurately.  He not only estimated what every object of fancy and taste would cost, but he accustomed himself to consider what the actual enjoyment of the indulgence would be. ...  He upon all occasions carefully separated the idea of the pleasure of possession from that of contemplating any object of taste.’

She also mentions that ’he observed, that the happiness that people derive from the cultivation of their understandings is not in proportion to the talents and capacities of the individual, but is compounded of the united measure of these, and of the use made of them by the possessor; this must include good or ill temper, and other moral dispositions.  Some with transcendent talents waste these in futile projects; others make them a source of misery, by indulging that overweening anxiety for fame which ends in disappointment, and excites too often the powerful passions of envy and jealousy; others, too humble, or too weak, fret away their spirits and their life in deploring that they were not born with more abilities.  But though so many lament the want of talents, few actually derive as much happiness as they might from the share of understanding which they possess.  My father never wasted his time in deploring the want of that which he could by exertion acquire.  Nor did he suffer fame in any pursuit to be his first object.’