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EMMA DARWIN
A CENTURY OF FAMILY LETTERS
1792-1896
VOLUME I
CHAPTER I
1792—1800
Emma Wedgwood—The Allens of Cresselly—Sir James Mackintosh—The Wedgwoods and Darwins—Josiah Wedgwood's marriage—A ball at Ramsgate—Tom Wedgwood's ill-health—The Wedgwoods at Gunville.
EMMA WEDGWOOD was born on May 2, 1808, at Maer Hall in Staffordshire. She was the youngest child of Josiah Wedgwood of Maer, and his wife, Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of John Bartlett Allen, of Cresselly, Pembrokeshire.
The first part of this family record consists of letters collected by Emma Wedgwood's mother, Mrs Josiah Wedgwood of Maer.1 Later on follow the life and letters of Emma Wedgwood, first as a girl and afterwards as the wife of her cousin, Charles Darwin. As these three families of Allens, Wedgwoods, and Darwins will be found constantly recurring through the book, I have found it convenient to begin with a short account of their origin, and especially of those members of the group who most often appear.
1 To avoid confusion, these letters, thus collected, will be called "The Maer Letters." Their editor is the third daughter of Emma Wedgwood, who married Charles Darwin.
The Allens came originally from the north of Ireland, and settled in Pembrokeshire in about 1600. The estate of Cresselly was acquired by the marriage of John Allen with Joan Bartlett. Their son, John Bartlett Allen of Cresselly (1733—1803), married Elizabeth Hensleigh, who died many years before her husband. He fought in the Seven Years" War as an officer in the 1st Foot Guards (now Grenadier Guards). Quite lately his great-grandson found that he was still remembered in the neighbourhood, and was told that "the owd capen was a wonderful man." He had a large family, eleven of whom lived to grow up. His melancholy disposition and arbitrary temper made the home in his old age an unhappy one.
Sir James Mackintosh, who married Catharine, the second daughter, thus described the life at Cresselly in a letter to Josiah Wedgwood (November 9, 1800): "We left the '2 maidens all forlorn at the House that Jack built" in tolerable good spirits considering the gloomy solitude to which they are condemned. We have heard from good little Emma [Allen] (she really is the best girl in the world), and are happy to hear that the Squire has been pleased to be infinitely more cordial and gracious to his two poor prisoners than he ever was before, so that bating an absolute want of amusement and a perpetual constraint in conversation they may be pretty comfortable. Mme de Maintenon complains of her situation with Louis XIV, 'Quelle triste occupation de ranimer une âme éteinte, et d'amuser un homme qui n'est plus amusable!""
I remember my father's telling how Mr Allen used to thump his fist on the table, and order his daughters to talk when he wished to be entertained after dinner. They were as a fact remarkably good talkers, and Dr Darwin, of Shrewsbury, thought this was partly owing to their drastic training at home. They formed an interesting group of women, handsome, spirited, clever, and deeply devoted to each other.
Elizabeth Allen, the eldest of the family, had both charm and beauty. She was the centre to whom her sisters turned secure of love and sympathy. Her practical wisdom and delicacy of feeling are revealed in the long series of letters of which only a fraction can here be given. But above all she had the charm of a radiant cheerfulness and of a singular sweetness in voice and manner. There is much in her character which reminds me of my mother. In both there was the same delight in giving and the same unfailing consideration for the unprosperous.
Catharine Allen (Kitty as she was always called) was an able woman, agreeable in conversation, and with a fine character in many respects. She was greatly interested in all questions of humanity, and was, I believe, one of the founders of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1798 she married James (afterwards Sir James) Mackintosh. She suffered greatly from the debt and difficulty in which he gradually became involved, but her own economy, especially as to her dress, was rigorous, and she was entirely high-minded in all questions relating to money. Sydney Smith wrote the following appreciation of Mackintosh's character, addressed to Robert Mackintosh, when he was collecting materials for the life of his father:
"Curran, the Master of the Rolls, said to Mr Grattan: 'You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you would buy a few yards of red tape, and tie up your bills and papers." This was the fault or the misfortune of your excellent father; he never knew the use of red tape, and was utterly unfit for the common business of life. That a guinea represented a quantity of shillings, and that it would barter for a quantity of cloth, he was well aware; but the accurate number of the baser coin, or the just measurement of the manufactured article, to which he was entitled for his gold, he could never learn, and it was impossible to teach him. Hence his life was often an example of the ancient and melancholy struggle of genius with the difficulties of existence. ... A high merit in Sir James Mackintosh was his real and unaffected philanthropy. He did not make the improvement of the great mass of mankind an engine of popularity, or a stepping-stone to power, but he had a genuine love of human happiness. Whatever might assuage the angry passions, and arrange the conflicting interests of nations; whatever could promote peace, increase knowledge, extend commerce, diminish crime, and encourage industry; whatever could exalt human character, and could enlarge human understandings, struck at once at the heart of your father, and roused all his faculties. I have seen him in a moment when this spirit came upon him—like a great ship of war—cut his cable, and spread his enormous canvas, and launch into a wide sea of reasoning eloquence."1
1 Sydney Smith, by G. W. E. Russell, p. 184.
The first Earl Dudley, in his Letters to Ivy, wrote of Mackintosh: "If I were a king I should make an office for him in which it should be his duty to talk to me two or three hours a day. ... He should fill my head with all sorts of knowledge, but, out of the great love I should bear towards my subjects, I would resolve never to take his advice about anything."
My father used to tell us that of all the great talkers he had ever known—Carlyle, Macaulay, Huxley, and others—he held Mackintosh to be the very first.
Caroline Allen married Edward Drewe, a Devonshire parson, brother of the Squire of Grange, near Honiton. Mr Edward Drewe died early, and she was for many years a widow. Her daughters, Harriet, Lady Gifford, and Georgina, Lady Alderson, mother of the late Marchioness of Salisbury, often appear in the later letters.
Louisa Jane Allen (always called Jane or Jenny) was the beauty of the family. Bessy spoke of her incomparable cheerfulness, and said: "With her the sun always shines, and she seems to trip rather than slide down the hill of life." My mother told us that the warmth and graciousness of her aunt Jane's welcome was quite unique in its charm. She married John, the eldest son of Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria, who soon after his father's death became a partner in Davison and Co.'s bank in Pall Mall. The Bank failed in 1816, and after that time he had no profession. He should be remembered as the founder of the Horticultural Society. "On the 7th March, 1804, there met at his suggestion in Hatchard's shop a little gathering, of whom the most distinguished was Sir Joseph Banks, and from their discussion sprang a society incorporated in 1809, Lord Dartmouth being the first President."1
1 Life of Josiah Wedgwood, by F. Julia Wedgwood.
Harriet Allen, the fifth daughter, was "very pretty and very tiny,"2 and was of a gentle unassuming nature. Her marriage to Matthew Surtees, Rector of North Cerney in Wiltshire, was most unhappy. It was made, as her sister Jessie said, with "an almost culpable want of affection," and only in order to escape from the unhappiness of her home. The family greatly disliked Mr Surtees, and he appears to have been jealous, ill-tempered, and tyrannical.
2 Mrs Smith of Baltiboys, in the Memoirs of a Highland Lady, thus characterises her.
Jessie Allen, who married Sismondi the historian, was, with the exception of Bessy, the most beloved by all her sisters. She was the favourite of her nephews and nieces, and had an especial love for Emma Wedgwood, the subject of this book. Jessie must have been a delightful companion, full of vivacity and gaiety, and with the power of intense devotion to those she loved. She was handsome, with brilliant colouring, large grey eyes, and dark hair. Her sister Bessy's letters to her "dearest of the dear," as she calls her, show a peculiar warmth. In one she wrote: "My silence has nothing to do with forgetfulness. Those who love you, my Jess, are not liable to that accident."
Octavia Allen died at the age of twenty-one, and only appears once or twice in the earlier letters.
The two youngest sisters, Emma and Fanny Allen, who never married, were important members of the group. Emma Allen was the only plain woman among the sisters. She spoke of her "half-formed face," and was quite aware how much more Jessie and the piquant Fanny were sought after. But she had no doubt of her welcome at Maer. She wrote in 1803 to her sister Bessy (sixteen years older than herself): "I have a very earnest desire to have some other communication than letter writing with my dear Bessy, whom it is now four years since I have seen. I do long to see you very much, and your children, and I am determined to pay you a visit soon after Christmas or at least before I return home to Cresselly. It has always been a subject of regret to me to have spent so little of my life with you, whom I so dearly love and admire more than anybody in the world."
Fanny Allen was more like a sister than an aunt to her elder nieces. She was very pretty, vivacious, and clever, with some sharpness in her marked character and great charm—a pet of Sir James Mackintosh, and a fierce Whig and devoted admirer of Napoleon. I remember her in her old age as a delightful companion, full of life, and still as straight as a dart.
Of the two brothers it is not necessary to say much, as there are no letters to or from them in the Maer collection. John Hensleigh Allen became the Squire of Cresselly after his father's death. He had a sunny, happy disposition, and was, like his own son Harry, a good raconteur. Lancelot Baugh, called Baugh, was Master of Dulwich College, where his sisters often visited him.
The first record of the Wedgwoods is in 1299, as villeins of Lord Audley in the Manor of Tunstall. Afterwards they were yeomen farmers at Blackwood-in-Horton. Before 1500 they became the Squires of Harracles.1 The ancestors of the Wedgwoods of Etruria separated from the senior branch1 about 1600, and became absorbed in the business of potting. Josiah Wedgwood (1730—1795) founded the town of Etruria in Staffordshire, where he carried on his renowned pottery works. His daughter, Susannah, married Dr Robert Waring Darwin of Shrewsbury, and was the mother of Charles Darwin.
1 The Wedgwoods of Harracles possessed some portion of these estates until the middle or end of the eighteenth century, when they became extinct.
The Darwins came originally from Lincolnshire, William Darwin of Marton, who died ante 1542, being the first known Darwin. They were yeomen in Lincolnshire for about 100 years, and then rose in rank. William Darwin (b. 1620) served as Captain Lieutenant in Sir W. Pelham's troop of horse, and fought for the King. His son William Darwin (b. 1655) married Anne Waring, the heiress of the Manor of Elston, Notts, which property is still in the possession of the elder branch of the Darwin family. His grandson was the well-known physician and poet, Dr. Erasmus Darwin of Lichfield, father of Dr. Robert Waring Darwin and grandfather of Charles Darwin.
The first intimation of intercourse between the Wedgwoods and Allens is the following letter from Josiah Wedgwood, the second son of Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria:
Josiah Wedgwood the younger to his father.
DEAR SIR, TENBY, August 20, 1792.
You will have heard by a letter of mine to Tom that we have had a very gay week at Haverfordwest Assizes. I have not been at Cresselly since, but as I left them all very well I hope to find them so to-morrow. The family at Cresselly is altogether the most charming one I have ever been introduced to, and their society makes no small addition to the pleasure I have received from this excursion. I am very happy to perceive that their spirits are not much affected by their Father's marriage.1 Our pleasures here are very simple, riding, walking, bathing, with a little dance twice a week.
You are so kind as to say that you shall be glad to see me and my sister, but I hope you have no objection to me staying a while longer, as much on my sister's account as my own, for I am afraid she has little chance of bringing Miss Allen back with her.
I am,
Your affectionate and dutiful son,
JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
1 His marriage to the daughter of a coal-miner. She was not brought to Cresselly.
Whether Josiah and his sister succeeded in persuading Miss Allen to return with them to Staffordshire is not known. But his wooing was successful, for his marriage took place in December, 1792, when he was twenty-three, and she was twenty-eight years old. Josiah, the younger, was always called Jos, and by this name he will be known here. There are but few letters from him in the Maer collection, and he had not the Allen gift of expression. His character must be realised not from what he says himself, but from the impression he made on others.
Fanny Allen said: "Daddy Jos is always right, always just, and always generous," and Dr Darwin considered him one of the wisest men he had ever known. He inspired awe as well as respect. His wife, although deeply devoted to him, was not quite at ease with him, and a little afraid of annoying and vexing him.1 But this was not judging him quite fairly, for though he was silent and grave, he had no harshness of temper. I have a dim impression of being told that Bessy considered men as dangerous creatures who must be humoured. Probably her early life at Cresselly had shaken her nerves and left her with impressions that she never got over. A little speech of Sydney Smith's, quoted to me by my mother, is interesting: "Wedgwood's an excellent man—it is a pity he hates his friends." His nieces the Darwins were, as girls, afraid of him, and I have been told that they were astounded at their brother Charles talking to him freely as if he was a common mortal, and that this trust on Charles" part made his uncle fond of him. My father says of him in his Autobiography: "He was silent and reserved, so as to be a rather awful man; but he sometimes talked openly with me. He was the very type of an upright man, with the clearest judgment. I do not believe that any power on earth could have made him swerve an inch from what he considered the right course."
1 He must have been very indulgent to his wife's wishes, for I have been told that no cows were kept at Maer, as the moaning of the cows when their calves were taken away distressed her.
During the first few years of their married life Jos and Bessy lived at Little Etruria, a house near Etruria Hall, which had been built for Bentley, his father's partner. Etruria was then quite a rural spot. To those who know what it is now with collieries, iron-works, and pottery kilns belching out black smoke, with dying trees in the fields, and blackened workmen's cottages, it is strange to read Emma Allen's description written about 1800: "I spent Saturday morning in walking with John [Wedgwood] over the works, which gratified me very much. I think Etruria [Hall] altogether a very nice place, much too good for its present inhabitants, and I felt interested in everything I saw there. I imagined it occupied by you and all the Wedgwoods, and how comfortable it must then have been. The green gate leading from one house to the other, which I had heard so much of from those I loved, immediately caught my attention."
After his father's death in 1795 Jos and Bessy were more or less wanderers for some years. They lived first at Stoke d'Abernon, in Surrey, and from 1800—1805 at Gunville, in Dorsetshire. He appeared to have trusted the management of the potteries almost entirely to his partner and cousin Mr Byerley, only himself paying occasional visits to Etruria.
There are but few letters to give in these old days—none of any interest till 1798. In that year Kitty and Harriet Allen had both married. Caroline and Jenny Allen had been married for some years, so that there were four sisters now left at Cresselly—Jessie, Octavia, Emma, and Fanny.
The following letter describes a meeting of Bessy and her two sisters, Jessie and Octavia, with the Mackintoshes at Broadstairs. It must have been the first time she had seen Kitty since her marriage to Mackintosh in April of the same year. Bessy was taking care of Octavia, who was threatened with consumption.
The Wedgwood family at Etruria Hall in or about 1780. From the picture by George Stubbs, R.A., in possession of Cecil Wedgwood of Idlerocks, Staffordshire. Stubbs was the famous animal painter of the time, and was especially noted for his pictures of horses.
Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Emma Allen.
BROADSTAIRS, 17th Oct. [1798].
...We found Kitty very well and in good spirits as usual. She visits hardly anybody here, which is very prudent. Mr M. still continues the fondest and the best-humoured husband I ever saw. The children1 are very manageable and the least troublesome of any I ever saw, and what will give you pleasure, I think she makes a very kind and attentive stepmother. Jessie and I have a snug little lodging twenty yards from theirs; we board with Kitty, and Ocky sleeps in the house with her to avoid the inconvenience of going out of nights. This is our present establishment, which we find very comfortable.... We have been at two balls, one at Margate, the other at Ramsgate, the last was a very genteel one, where we saw a multitude of pretty women, the first was infinitely vulgar. At Margate, Ocky danced with an Officer who looked very like her friend Capt. Scourfield at a distance, but fell very short when he came near, having but one eye. Some relations of Mr Mackintosh's introduced us all to partners, such as they were, but it must be confessed they were but very so-so. When we went to Ramsgate, the Master of the Ceremonies asked us all to dance, but Jessie and I were too delicate or too proud to like to commission him to solicit the hand of anybody, and chose to sit still. Kitty and Ocky's love of dancing was stronger than their delicate feelings on this subject, and he brought up a couple of partners to them. Ocky's was tolerably genteel, but Kitty's not quite so much so, being rather more upon the establishment of a boy than suits her taste. Ocky's partner, however, had like to have paid dear for the pleasure of dancing with her, for when we came to tea, she undertook to make it, and the urn being what we call very tripless,* she pulled it over and scalded her poor beau's leg; however, I don't believe he was very hurt, as he danced two or three dances afterwards, and Ocky recovered of her fright enough to dance another set with him. We came away in very good time, and I don't think she is at all the worse for it this morning. There is to be a very grand Ball at Guildford on account of Nelson's victory, the 25th [Oct.], and we are all going.2 ...
* "Tripless," according to the English Dialect Dictionary, is a Pembrokeshire word, and means unsteady, rickety.
1 His three daughters, Maitland, Mary, and Catherine, by his first wife Catherine Stuart.
2 When they return, that is, to Stoke d'Abernon. The Battle of the Nile was on August 1st this year.
Jessie Allen appears to have spent a whole year away from Cresselly, passing many months with the Josiah Wedgwoods. On her return to Cresselly she wrote to her sister Bessy (June 10, 1799): "One thing I do entreat, which is that you take the greatest possible care of your dear self. Get rid if you can of some of the superabundant affection and feeling you have for your own family. At present I am sure you have too much either for your own health or happiness; this is most disinterested advice on my part, for what on earth do I love more or prize higher than your affection for us?" She gave a graphic picture of her nervous dread at returning to Cresselly and her happiness that her younger sister Emma had not to return with her: "Now she is safe, and I am where I ought to have been long ago. I cannot tell you how much I dreaded my first arrival here, and my nervousness got to such a height as almost amounted to misery."
The following is an undated draft of a letter from Bessy to her youngest sister Fanny, seventeen years her junior. It must certainly have been written whilst Fanny was quite a girl, probably about 1800. Nothing is known as to what called for Bessy's reproof.
Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Fanny Allen.
ETRURIA, Saturday.
MY DEAR FANNY,
It is not with very pleasant feelings that I consider that there is but one day between this and the end of your visit, and as I fear I shall not have an opportunity or feel it in my power to say all I wish when we part, I chuse this way of conveying to you my tenderest wishes for your happiness. I cannot forbear telling you how amiable your conduct has appeared to me ever since our conversation in the Garden. Your silence left me rather in doubt whether you did not either think me unjust, or feel angry with me for what might appear impertinent. I saw I had given you great pain, and I felt very sorry for it. But your kind and obliging manner to me ever since has completely done away every apprehension of that sort, and I see and appreciate as it deserves the delicacy of your conduct. Not only have I never observed in a single instance what I had mentioned to you, but you have taken care by the most affectionate and attentive behaviour to let me see that you were not angry. Continue, my dear Fanny, to watch over your own character, with a sincere desire of perfecting it as much as is in your power, and you will make the happiness of all belonging to you. You have very little to do, for God has given you an excellent temper, and a very good understanding. Do not therefore content yourself with a mediocrity of goodness. You are now at a happy time of life when almost everything is in your own power, and your character may be said to be in your own hands, to make or mar it for ever. If you humbly look into yourself, you are a better judge of your failings than any other person can be, but do not seek to palliate or veil them from your own heart. Your friends will value you for your excellences.
Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria had a third son, Thomas Wedgwood,1 who has not hitherto been mentioned. He was a remarkable man in many directions—the friend and benefactor of Coleridge, and practically the first discoverer of photography, although he was unable to "fix" his pictures. His short life ended in 1805, when he was thirty-four years old, after years of terrible suffering from some mysterious illness which was never explained.
1 See Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer, by R. B. Litchfield.
There is much evidence that his personality was impressive. Fanny Allen tells of "the effect that his appearance and manner had on Mackintosh's 'set," as they were called." "Sydney Smith was almost awed"; and she narrates how at a party assembled to see a picture by Da Vinci of the head of Christ, Dugald Stewart2 said: "You are looking at that head—I cannot keep my eyes from the head of Mr Wedgwood (who was looking intently down at the picture), it is the finest I ever saw." Wordsworth, too, describes his appearance: "His calm and dignified manner, united with his tall person and beautiful face, produced in me an impression of sublimity beyond what I ever experienced from the appearance of any other human being." His brother Jos had a devoted, almost passionate, love for him.
2 Famous at this time as the leading representative of philosophic studies in England. He held the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh from 1785 to 1820.
Tom Wedgwood spent a great part of his life wandering in search of health. When at home he chiefly lived with Jos and Bessy, and interested himself much in the education of his little nephews and nieces. His doctrinaire views founded on Rousseau must have been trying to his sister-in-law. In other ways, too, the situation must have needed her tact and unalterable sweetness of character to make the home happy.
Thomas Wedgwood. From a chalk drawing belonging to Mrs Vaughan Williams of Leith Hill Place. Artist unknown
The following letter from Jos to Tom was written after the brothers had just parted at Falmouth, whence Tom had sailed for the West Indies. The voyage was undertaken for the sake of his health.
Josiah Wedgwood to his brother Tom.
GUNVILLE, Feb. 28, 1800.
MY DEAR TOM,
I cannot resist the temptation of employing my first moment of leisure to unburden my heart in writing to you. The distance that separates us, the affecting circumstances under which we parted, our former inseparable life and perfect friendship, unite to deepen the emotion with which I think of you, and give an importance and solemnity that is new to my communication with you. I did not know till now how dearly I love you, nor do you know with what deep regret I forebore to accompany you. It was a subject I could not talk to you upon, though I was perpetually desirous to make you acquainted with all my feelings upon it. I would not without necessity leave my wife and children, and I believed that I ought not; yet my resolution was not taken without a mixture of self-reproach. But I repeat the promise I made you at Falmouth.
I have not yet been able to think of you with dry eyes, but a little time will harden me. It is not so necessary for me to see you, as to know that you are well and happy. Nothing could be more disinterested than the love I bear you. I know that my wife and children would alone render me happy, but I see, with the most heartfelt concern, that your admirable qualifications are rendered ineffectual for your happiness, and your fame, by your miserable health. But I have a full conviction that your constitution is strong and elastic, and that your present experiment bids fair to remove the derangement of your machine. I look forward with hope and joy to our meeting again, and I am sure that seeing you again, well and vigorous, will be a moment of the purest happiness I can feel.
Perhaps this may be the last time that I shall write to you in this strain. If it should for a time revive your sorrow, it cannot long injure your tranquillity, to be told that I love you, esteem you, and admire you truly and deeply.
I took possession of this place this morning with very different feelings from those I should have had if we had been together. I have made up my mind to-day not to add anything to the buildings until I shall have become better acquainted with the place. On looking more closely at the stables I see that 15 or 20 pounds laid out will enable them to serve a year or two, and I shall not be in a hurry to do more.
The last waggon-load from Upcott came about an hour after me, with all the live stock in good condition. I was very well pleased to be saluted by a neigh from the gig-horse the moment she heard my voice—Dido is so like Donna that I thought it was she recovered.—I find the aloes were not quite so good a bargain as we thought, for they were killed by the frost when they were brought.
I shall be here en famille in about 10 days, and possibly my mother and sister with us, but I do not know. In the beginning of April we go to town and there stay to the end of May. Whether we shall then go to Cresselly or Etruria—I do not know.
I have written to Gregory Watt1 to send me a copying machine, that I may send duplicates by another packet, a precaution you must not forget. I will send you more copying paper. I shall curse the French with great sincerity if they take the packet bearing your first letter. How anxiously will it be expected, and with what emotion will it be opened and read! You will hear from us in a month, or less, after your arrival, and we must not expect to hear from you in less than four months from your departure. Very few of the letters I write afford me any pleasure, but I foresee a great pleasure in writing to you all that comes, and just as it comes. There is a pleasure in tender regret for the absence and misfortunes of a person one loves, and corresponding with that person is the complete fruition of it. I feel like Æneas clasping the shade of Creusa; I call up your image but it is not substantial. Farewell, dear Tom.
1 Son of James Watt, and an intimate friend of the Wedgwood brothers.
The following letters were written after Tom's return from the West Indies, the expedition having proved a complete failure as regarded his health. The Wedgwoods were not yet settled in Gunville, and Bessy was visiting her father and sisters at Cresselly.
Josiah Wedgwood to his wife at Cresselly.
CHRISTCHURCH, July 31, 1800.
I am just returned from a very pleasant evening walk with B. and Jos.1 I find they recollect many things about Etruria that surprised me, particularly in Jos. Our last half-hour was by moonlight on the sea-shore, the waves pouring gently at our feet. The delightful scenery and the innocent prattle of the children have disposed me to write to you, rather than to complete the task I had set myself for this evening of casting up a part of my building accounts. I think it was well imagined of two lovers or friends, separated from each other, to fix the days and hours of writing to each other, that they might be sure that each was occupied about the other at one moment. I hope this invention was of two lovers; if it had been told me of two women, or two men, I should call it romantic affectation. I never in my most philosophical days agreed with the opinion of the proscribers of marriage and upholders of universal concubinage—the expression is as detestable as the idea—and I cannot conceive that any but a corrupt libertine can be sincere in approving it. Who that had felt in himself the tranquil, but penetrating charm of an intimate and long-continued union with a woman sensible to his pains and his pleasures, participating in his hopes, strengthening his good dispositions, and gently discouraging his harshness and petulance, and more than all, who is become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, by bearing him children, who that is susceptible of that delightful and ennobling sympathy, would truck it for the wandering gratifications and ferocious contests of brutes. And these men are improvers of the condition of mankind! If one did not know them to be better than they profess to be, one would be afraid to hold converse with them. It is singular that Rousseau, who has given so admirable a picture of domestic education, and infused it with all the powers of his eloquence, should have sent his children to the Enfans trouvés, and that Godwin, whose writings tend to make a foundling hospital of the world, should have been an affectionate husband, and is now a tender father to his wife's and his own child. I am and will be your affectionate husband, and we are and will be tender parents to our dear children. I have no pleasures that I can compare with those I derive from you and from them. Your idea fills me, and I clasp you as the heroes of poetry clasp the shades of the departed.
1 Elizabeth and Josiah, the two eldest children, aged seven and five.
My sisters went to look at Chettle on Sunday, and were much taken with it.... My mother speaks of you as her dear Bessy. She says she does not know enough of Dorsetshire to be prejudiced for or against it, but she shall be very glad to be near Tom and me and her dear Bessy, and the word with her has a deeper meaning than with some who use it oftener. She is not demonstrative, but she is affectionate. Chettle is to be vacant at Michaelmas. Besides the advantage of my mother and sisters as neighbours, which will be particularly great to Tom, we get the command of a very good manor.
I have just sent up my income return, and I have given in £874 as the tenth of my last year's income. I cannot say but it grudges me to pay such a sum to be squandered, as I believe it will, mischievously.... I have set some additional hands to work at Gunville, and I do not yet despair of Tom and me getting in by the 1st Sept., and its being ready for you by the time your furlough will expire, to which, by the bye, I hope youwill conform like a good soldier.... Our tête-à-tête1 here is tolerably endurable. We seldom meet for five minutes except at dinner, and then with eating, drinking, and helping the children, we manage to pass an hour with a few remarks. I believe if we were to live twenty years together we should make no further progress in intimacy. However, she does exceedingly well in her situation; she did not come here to amuse me. I do not see any signs of melancholy about her. I fancy my sister's visit has cheered her for a while.
1 With Miss Dennis, the governess.
I rely on your discretion to keep my letters to yourself; they may do between you and me, but your quizzing sisters would be tremendous. Give my love to them all, and believe me with heartfelt tenderness, your affectionate husband,
JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her husband.
CRESSELLY, Aug. 28th, 1800.
I have felt my heart very heavy with the idea that you would be angry with me for prolonging my stay after my repeated promises that I would not, but I really found it impossible to resist. I am not sure that it would have been right to have done so. If my Father's account of his own situation was accurate it certainly would have been barbarous in me not to have staid, and as he thinks it so, the effect would be much the same on his feelings. But I am sure I am not just to you in doubting for an instant that you will enter into my feelings. I am sure I suffer more in the delay than it is possible you can, because it is more my own doing. I am persuaded your next letter will do away all my present feelings, but the comfort of meeting you will be more than I can express.
Farewell, dear Jos, love to the Children and Miss Dennis.
Josiah Wedgwood to his wife at Cresselly.
CHRISTCHURCH, August 28, 1800.
... You cannot refuse your father a few days, as he makes a point of your staying longer than the time you had fixed, and I hope Mackintosh and J. Allen will enliven them, so as to make them pleasanter than those you have hitherto passed at Cresselly. I will not affect to say that this difficulty thrown in the way of your return is not disagreeable to me, but you need not apprehend that there is anything of anger in the sentiment. I should be more displeased with your apprehension of anger, if I did not consider that the atmosphere you have lately breathed inspires fear. I am truly sorry that your visit has turned out so little to your satisfaction, and sorry that you will set out low spirited on so long a solitary journey.... I hope you are assured that shooting would not interfere with any plan for meeting you. Shooting is a pleasant thing, and I must have active exercise, but its pleasures are subordinate indeed to those in which the affections are engaged. And it is not on my own account that I am now at all eager about it. You know how much Tom has set his heart and his hopes upon it, and I am certain you have too much kindness for him to grudge the sacrifice of part of my time to this object. I have been sometimes afraid you might think I take from you to give to him, but I have never perceived that you did, and it is a source of sincere gratification to me, and increases my esteem for you, to know that you are without jealousy on the subject, and that you return the sincere affection he bears for you. ...
I am glad you have not executed either of your schemes. Mary Allen1 I have no objection to but as taking up room, which at present we cannot spare. As to the poor little Ridgway, I should have been very sorry if you had put your scheme with respect to her in practice. I do not know that she is a fit companion for children. If filled, as I suppose, with the notions common with uneducated Welsh persons, I am sure she is not. She would have been a fish out of water, and you would not have known what to do with her. Above all things preserve the agreeableness of your home....
I wish to heaven I could make you chear up. I owe you a spite for being cast down for nothing. My love to all your party, and I am and ever shall be, your affectionate J. W.
I go to Gunville to-morrow for good.
1 Bessy wished to bring back her cousin, Mary Allen, and "little Ridgway," because she was "half-starved."
Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her husband.
CRESSELLY, Sept. 1st, 1800.
MY DEAR JOS,
Contrary to your calculation, I received your letter of the 28th this evening, and it has made me very happy. I now hasten to write you my last dispatch from Cresselly, but I must make it short, as it is late, and I have taken a long walk which has tired me. I have been a fool to make myself at all uneasy upon the subject, when I knew at the same time that you would not be angry with me, but I don't know how it was, I thought you might feel uncomfortable, and indeed I felt so myself at the thoughts of our meeting being deferred. I have always written to you from the feelings of the moment, and perhaps I have sometimes given you a stronger impression of my being out of spirits than was just. John Allen and Mackintosh have enlivened our society very much, and I think my Father begins to relish society more than he did. I fancied he was a little afraid of Mackintosh at first, but he has now found out that he is by no means overbearing, and he finds himself comfortable in his company.
I am very glad I did not pursue my two schemes with relation to M. Allen and M. Ridgway, and I think you are perfectly right in what you say. I had no notion that our house was in so backward a state when I thought of Harriet [Surtees] paying us a visit, but if I find it inconvenient when we get to Gunville it will be very easy to put them off.
I am very glad you acquit me of all jealousy with respect to dear Tom. I really deserve it, for there are no sacrifices I would not make to be of any service to him, compatible with my other duties. I hope he has joined you by this time, and that he finds he can pursue his game with pleasure and advantage. My kind love to him.
I am, my dearest Jos,
Yours ever,
E. WEDGWOOD.
