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EMMA DARWIN
A CENTURY OF FAMILY LETTERS
1792-1896
VOLUME I
CHAPTER XIII
1825—1826
Fanny and Emma Allen return to Cresselly—The death of Caroline Wedgwood—The Grand Tour of the Josiah Wedgwoods—Frank Wedgwood at Maer—Their return home—Allen Wedgwood Vicar of Maer—The anti-slavery agitation.
IN 1825 a great change took place in the lives of Emma and Fanny Allen. Their brother John's wife died after a long illness, and they returned to live at Cresselly to take care of his four children—Seymour Phillips (called Bob), Harry, Johnny, and Isabella. Fanny's pet was Johnny, 6 years old; Emma devoted herself to the little Isabella. After regretting that her sister Jessie had no children, Emma wrote: "It is very consoling to live among the springing things when you are yourself declining, and without children I sometimes think it is almost impossible to grow old with grace.... Isabella is become, perhaps from imitation of Johnny, nearly as fond of me as he is of Fanny. Her favourite place is now on my lap. She is so volatile that I daresay this taste of hers will not last, but it appears so strange to me to have anything so fond of me that I feel it is creating in me a feeling that will not pass away." Emma Allen's attitude was striking in her dignified and open acceptance of the fact that everywhere her sisters were more popular than herself. She said of her brother in 1818, "John I am sure shews me more affection than he ever did before, and if you could but know how I have always loved him you may guess how delightful his tender manners are to me." Bessy, however, wrote of this sister a few years later: "We shall miss her very much. If I did not love and value her as I do, I should feel the benign influence of her contented spirit and tranquil soul."
Caroline, the second daughter of the John Wedgwoods, died early in 1825. This death affected her family deeply. They had before been inclined to belong to the Evangelical party in the Church of England, and this loss made them adopt a rigid form of that creed which seemed narrow to the Josiah Wedgwoods.
In the autumn of 1824 a scheme had begun to mature for the Maer family making a long tour to Switzerland and Italy. Many preparations for the journey were discussed in the letters to and from Geneva, and one perceives how serious an affair it then was to take a large party abroad. Amongst other arrangements two carriages had to be bought. Bessy wrote to Jessie Sismondi asking her to get evening gowns for the girls, which she appeared to think could be made by simply giving the length of their skirts, with a remark that they are not fond of having their things tight. But Elizabeth more practically added: "Unless your mantua maker is a witch, it is impossible she should make our bodies, so do not trouble her about the size."
They went by Paris to Geneva. Bessy gave up an evening to visiting Madame Collos. In a former letter in speaking of a proposed visit of the Sismondis to Paris, Bessy wrote to Jessie (April 8, 1822): "When you go to Paris how will you get off from the Grande Truanderie? It will be something of a bore, though my heart smites me while I write it. It would not however be necessary for you to do so much duty as it would be for me, if I were at Paris. I sometimes think it would be difficult to do, as Kitty [Mackintosh] says she always does, 'exactly the right thing."" This reminds me of my mother who never neglected any humble friend or relation, especially if their society was not found generally amusing, yet never took an exacting view of the duties of others.
It was decided that Bessy's health would not allow her to join in the Italian tour, so after the whole party had been five weeks at Geneva, Jos and the four daughters, with Henri the Courier, set off on the 8th of March to cross Mont Cenis, Bessy staying behind with the Sismondis. Elizabeth wrote to her mother from Aix to express her, "longing desire" that she could have been of the party, and said "it has felt to-day like anything but a party of pleasure."
The Sismondis, after the departure of the Italian party, made their annual move to their little campagne two or three miles out of Geneva.
Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Fanny Allen at Kingscote.
GENEVA, Ap. 21, 1825.
Jessie is gone to Chêne with Sismondi to hang up her curtains and to scrattle about, as we go there to-morrow, and she piques herself upon my finding it very comfortable. I have been waiting for a little pause in her correspondence to thank you, dearest of Fannys, for yours of the 6th of last month. But another from my ever dear Jenny [Wedgwood] has made my gratitude to you both overflow, and I am enjoying being "by myself," that I may write to you quite at my ease in this little drawing-room, with a good fire, and just at Emma [Allen]'s own end of the table where she used to study. I pretend to study French, but in a very dawdling manner. Indeed we dawdle a good deal over everything, and can with some difficulty breakfast before 10 o'clock, do no work, and scarcely read at all. I hope we shall mend our manners when we get to Chêne.
I felt a little low-spirited when they all went, but I trust my Jessie did not perceive it, and I am now extremely comfortable. Who could be otherwise with such a kind, such an affectionate and such an agreeable hostess? Yet to give up sweet Italy and noble Rome, never again to have a chance of seeing them! I did it willingly, but it was something like putting on a blister, it made me smart.
Jessie gave a grand Soirée last night, which, she insists upon it, has offended all her company. I saw no signs of it, but she says that many of the second set gave out signs of dissatisfaction at being so grouped, and a few of the aristocrats would think themselves encanaillés. She asked about 60, but more than 20 sent excuses, and those of the best, and the Tag Rags sat all one side of the room, not moving from their seats and doing nothing. The gentlemen having no seats were obliged to stand. Poor Madame Piscara and Madame Rossi sat as usual, almost by themselves, and it is no small proof of the pride and ill-nature of this place, the manner in which these two harmless women are treated. I never saw such a place for taking huff. Madame Soret has taken me so much en grippe that she will hardly speak to me, and I can't guess how I have offended her. I thought her very tiresome at Mr Simond's party the first time we met, but I don't recollect I ever said so to anybody. But to return to Jessie's party—I played cards with Madame Butiné, Mr Viesseux whom I liked very well, and young Spencer son of the Poet,1 beau comme l'amour, but too sensible of it. Jessie did not ask any of her select acquaintance, Madame Constant, de Candolle, and half a score others who she said would think themselves affronted to be asked to such a party—did you ever hear the like? I feel as if I were walking upon eggs among them. Yet I like a great many of them, but I don't much enjoy the feeling of being so much on sufferance with my bad French among them, and I am discouraged in getting the better of it from seeing what little progress Jessie has made. I doubt our modest Harriet's being entirely happy here if ever it is her fate to settle here. Jessie is in fact everything to her, but will Jessie be enough? Jessie had a letter from her yesterday written in such gay spirits that it was quite delightful to see, yet Surtees seems very ill. She speaks in another place so prettily upon sisterly affection that I must quote her. "Could she know the infinite blessing of sisterly affection, and the happiness it can give when there is little other source from whence to draw it, she would foster and nourish the holy flame with a vestal's care"—I have spoiled it by taking it out of its place, but it shews you the source of her own happiness.
1 W. R. Spencer (1769—1834), a minor poet who had a certain popularity. He appears in Rejected Addresses: "Sobriety cease to be sober."
Jessie grumbles exceedingly at going so soon to Chêne, but I like it. I never saw such an universal favourite as she is among the men. I have been speculating upon the reason, and I think I have discovered it to be a little degree of coquetry that she mixes up in her manner that makes her so attractive. Mr Pictet1 is I think in love with her, and Mr de Candolle seeks her company with more gallantry than common acquaintance usually use. The whole town is in mourning and grief for Professor Pictet who is to be buried to-morrow. I don't like Madame Simond, but am much pleased with Madame de Candolle, Bossi, Dumont, and Favre.2 We scarcely ever fall in with any young girls as they are all with their Societies. I suppose there were a dozen young men here last night and only two young women. To-night is the select Thursday evening—we expect Mme Constant and Mme de Candolle. God bless you all now at Kingscote. My dearly beloveds", E. W.
1 Adolphe Pictet (1799—1875), Ethnologist. Professor Marcus Auguste Pictet (b. 1752), whose death is mentioned above, was a Physicist.
2 These four names appear constantly in the Geneva letters. De Candolle (1778—1841), the famous Botanist, was Professor of Natural History there from 1816 to his death. Bossi is mentioned by Edouard Scherer as one of the literary Geneva-Coppet circle. Dumont was one of Sismondi's best friends and one of the foremost figures in the intellectual society of Geneva. Rossel, in his Histoire Litéraire de la Suisse Romande, speaks of him as "ce savant actif et jovial dont la rondeur et l'entrain contrastaient avec le ton pédant et les airs ennuyés da la société Genevoises du temps." He was a friend of Mackintosh and other leading English Liberals, and had been intimate in England with Bentham, of whose doctrines he was the chief continental apostle. Favre was a man of great learning and a profound historical student—Mme de Staël called him "mon érudit." He and Sismondi had been prison companions thirty years before this, at the time of the Genevan "terror." The Simonds were relatives of Sismondi.
Bessy received many letters from her husband and the girls while on their Italian journey. These contain less expression of enjoyment than might have been expected, but my mother told us she never felt well all the tour. They were all deeply impressed with the poverty of Italy. Jos wrote, "I never saw so much misery in so small a space before, and really it is paying dear for any pleasure that travelling affords, to be besieged by crowds of hideous men, women, and children begging importunately every time we stop to change horses."
Their aunt Jessie had been anxious about the girls" dress and appearance. Elizabeth wrote to her mother after a party at Florence (Ap. 1825): "Emma acquitted herself very well with the nice lady on the sofa; and tell Jessie we dressed our hair as we thought in good style. I do not know how the curtsies were performed." My mother told me they were plentifully stared at, four very English-looking girls, all with fresh complexions and pink cheeks and all with spectacles. At Sorrento she said the courier locked them up in their room to ensure their safety from insult when they were left alone for a little.
Bessy meanwhile joined in the social life of Geneva and Chêne and enjoyed it all. A young Englishman (I think the beautiful Mr Spencer) became much devoted to her and was called her "Cavaliere Servente." She wrote to her husband to express uneasiness at having felt obliged to play cards on Sunday out of civility, to which he answered (30 March, 1825): "One word about your playing cards on Sunday, as you do not think it wrong to do so, why should you object to [your sisters] Caroline or Jane knowing that you did? I am rather afraid of Evangelicism spreading amongst us, though I have some confidence in the genuine good sense of the Maerites for keeping it out, or if it must come for having the disease in a very mild form."
Elizabeth Wedgwood to her mother (at Chêne).
PIAZZA BERBERINI, ROME, April 14, 1825.
... We look upon ourselves as the very luckiest people that ever were, to have a second illumination of St Peter's and fireworks on purpose for us as it were. We were rather in a puzzle as to our dress, as the invitation to Torlonia's theatre was to spend the evening, and we should have to sit in an open gallery over the river. We consulted Mrs Bunsen, who told us to go full dressed; so to prevent catching cold Charlotte and I put pink handkerchiefs on our heads, and our black satins, which are the most comfortable gowns in the world. At half-past 6 we set out to take our station in the Place of St Peter, which, the way we went, is two miles off. By the time we got there the paper lanthorns were lighted, and we saw the men sticking to the outside of the dome, and climbing up the cross. As it grew dark the illumination became more and more beautiful, and when the clock struck eight, the whole church looked alive with torches, and in half a minute the entire church and porticos became the most brilliant scene I ever saw.
Sunday. I am sorry you have taken at all to heart Papa's simile for himself. I think he enjoys what he sees here as much or more than any of us. He has not so much pleasure in the travelling itself, but he liked that better when he had thrown all trouble and anxiety off his shoulders by going with a vetturino....
We went last night at 7 to see the pilgrims at supper. All pilgrims are fed and lodged for three days, and waited on at supper by a society of ladies and gentlemen, Princesses and Cardinals. We went very luckily without Papa, who would have been heartily tired as it turned out, but we had an amusing evening. We knocked at the door and were announced as four foreign ladies, and found ourselves in a great hall with tables with lamps and writing things, and a few men in red gowns laughing and talking and bustling backwards and forwards. There we stood helpless some time, not knowing where to go; till at last the old man in red who let us in, after a quantity of gabbling and gesticulating which we could make nothing of, fairly put us out into the street again and shut the door on us. By this time the carriage was gone, so there we staid in the dirt and the dark, till the door was opened again to let in some more ladies, and we pushed in after them and followed them thro" the hall and several more places, full of bustle and pilgrims and soldiers, till we got upstairs to where the women pilgrims were to sup. There we found two very long well lighted rooms with tables down each side, and I should think some hundreds of ladies without their bonnets and most of them in white aprons to serve. There was a middle room besides, where there was a set of women with towels on their heads, listening to a sermon from a man in red. After this they went on their knees, and said such a number of Ave Marias that I was tired waiting to see the end, and they must have wanted their suppers terribly which they did not get till near ten o'clock. The Princess Doria was going about directing, and the Queen of Etruria's daughter and two other young Princesses Ruspoli, who looked as if they were carrying about the trays for fun. We were almost the only strangers there, as the Princess had given orders that none should be let in that night, as she was expecting the King and Queen of Naples. However nobody looked sour on us, and indeed I never knew such civil people. One good-humoured talking lady staid with us great part of the time; another took me about and told me who the people were; another genteel young lady who was serving talked English to us, and at last said she and her mother and sister would be happy to visit us; and if we were fond of music, she played the harp and her sister the piano. So we exchanged directions and we were to call on her to-morrow. She was pleasing and natural. Another lady began a conversation in English with me with "Are you an Englishman?" and was very civil. The King and Queen with the Duke of Lucca in a red gown and various other great people came in, and at last we came away, guided by our good-natured first friend, whom we set down with a fat friend of hers; and at parting she also gave us her direction and desired us to call, so that even you could not have wished a more productive evening in the way of society. By the way I must say how friendly Mrs Bunsen is—she is pleasing from an appearance of great modesty and gentleness, but she still runs on in the same monotonous way she used to do.
Charlotte Wedgwood to her mother.
[ROME], April 29, 1825.
... We like Rome so much that all Jessie's scoldings cannot persuade us to be sorry we left Florence so soon. Now that we are within a week of the end of our month here, I grudge every day that passes. I scarcely know why I like it so much. I think it suits Papa too very well. All his time that is not occupied in seeing sights, he employs, as it appears very much to his satisfaction, in looking out of the window and watching the idle groups of common people that this square is constantly filled with. They are so picturesque, and I think handsome, that they afford constant amusement. We want nothing, my dear Mama, but that your strength would have permitted you to come with us; but when we are resting from our travels our life is much more fatiguing than on the journey, which would never have done for you; even Papa has sometimes been quite fatigued at the end of the day. The English are leaving Rome very fast. Last Sunday there was a very thin congregation, and the Vatican, which the first day we went to it was like a gay promenade with the numbers of English, is now left to the Pilgrims and ourselves. We always meet crowds of them, and their simple staring mahogany faces and the gay dresses of the women make a great part of the amusement of going there. They seem to take very much to Elizabeth, having applied to her several times for any information they wanted, and she has had long conversations with some of them.
On Thursday we were to take the Persianis to Villa Borghese, but it rained and we could only bring them here. But we found not the least difficulty in entertaining them, as we had only the two girls, whom I like very much. Giulietta seems to me to have some very heretical notions, at least there are many points of their church rules that she made not the least scruple to disapprove very much, and she said the priests were selfish and thought of nobody but themselves. And her opinion of Convents and Nuns seems very bad; she gave us an account of the dreadful life they lead at the two strictest of the convents. I cannot conceive how such horrible places have existed so long. They are called Vivi sepolti, and no name could be so descriptive of them....
Frank Wedgwood to his sister Fanny.
MAER, WEDNESDAY, April 27 [1825].
DEAR FANNY,
I mean to write you a very long letter all about Maer.... Peggy is banished to the Moss for biting the hedges, and somebody has built her a snug little hut of stumps out of a hedge that has been grubbed up, hurdles and so forth. I think Squib pined when I was at Edinburgh, for I left him fat and found him lean; yet he will not go to Etruria with me, and if he does not see Jos set out to come back, he had rather stay all night there than come home with me....
I have had the school two Sundays. I take them in the servants" hall, which is better than the laundry, there are fewer things for them to spoil, particularly now there is some wet plastering in the washhouse. I got on pretty well with them, particularly the second time; I follow Elizabeth's plan of giving them each a ticket and one for the cleanest hands. When service is in the afternoon, I get all the school over at once and the subject of going to church is not mentioned between us; I have stuck up a notice in school that I will punish them if they behave ill there. I am very busy pruning oak trees, and as soon as Mester Dabbs has set th'taties, I shall take one of the men into my service and do great execution amongst boughs and snags. I am so busy now that I have not time to read over the pottery Gazette; indeed if you saw us dispatch our dinner you would think that we had hardly time for that.
We have had some turns out in the potteries, chiefly I believe because the masters, in their eagerness to undersell one another, keep increasing the sizes of their ware without increasing the prices of making; they have had some meetings at Newcastle and Hanley to try to bring all the sizes to a common standard, in which I should think that they will not succeed. Last week the colliers turned out, so that many of the works stopped for want of coals. I do hope they will not frighten the parliament into re-enacting the combination laws. As Jos and I do not spend much of our time in chattering, and to be even with you, we have agreed to keep journals too. I will give you an extract from mine: Monday. Went to Etruria as usual; rained a little; thought at one time of putting on my greatcoat, however it went off; cauliflowers boiled crisp. Tuesday. Squib went rather farther than usual with me, viz., to Maer field-gate.
Barbara would not drink. Wednesday. Got wet. Thursday. Ditto. Friday. Ditto twice. Saturday. Counted 21 carts going to market; the fire went out; told the boy to light it again, which he did; thought the damsons tasted salt; Jos said "No, it was fancy." Jos's journal I have not seen, but I believe it is conciser than mine. Apropos to journals it would save you much trouble if you were to write a family journal, for they must all be exactly the same; do not let me find "excessively" more than once a day in it.
My love to all of you,
Your affectionate brother, F. W.
Josiah Wedgwood to his wife (at Chêne).
SORRENTO, May 24, 1825.
... All these boasted places only confirm my preference of England and of Maer. I am quite surprised at the attachment of your sisters to Rome, especially as I suppose they had not a carriage constantly, for the filthy habits of the people and the total neglect of the police as to cleanliness, make the town very disagreeable even for a man to walk about in, and intolerable I should have supposed for English women. As one instance, towards evening you every now and then hear vessels emptied of water, or some less innocent contents, from the windows of the houses, without notice; and as far as I could ever perceive without the precaution of looking whether the street was clear.... I believe I shall quit this country without any desire ever to return to it, but if possible with a deeper detestation of the principles which cause its degradation, and a more heartfelt approbation of the contrary ones which are in operation in our own happy country, and of the men who are supporting them. I don't know whether the Italians are subject to the same annoyance, or whether, if subject, they become insensible to it, but the mere importunity of the miserable beggars that you meet with at every step, and who ask for alms with loud cries and as much earnestness as if their existence depended on succeeding in each instance, makes a walk a scene of persecution. In short this country has so many odious or painful circumstances which move one's indignation, contempt, or compassion so powerfully that the charms of scenery and of climate cannot have their proper effect. In short I remain at least as good a John Bull as I came out. You must not think however that I have looked only at one side. I have had much pleasure, and I have satisfied a wish almost as old as my memory, and I must not expect to escape the lot of human nature that there is disappointment in the gratification of all desires. "Man never is but always to be blest." I heartily wish you could have partaken of my pleasures or disappointments, but many, I believe most, of the pleasures would have been fatigues to you. I trust however that this first long separation will be our last. I turned my face northward from Paestum with the feeling of being on my way to meet you....
If you do not contrive to meet us at Milan for the purpose of going with us to Venice, I rather think we shall not be unlikely to give up Venice altogether. I suspect that by that time we shall think the sight of Venice will scarcely repay us for lengthening our route so much. We think that Canaletto and the Panorama have made us familiar with the appearance of Venice, and besides the appearance, there is not much for such cursory travellers as we are, except some pictures. After my lamentations in my last for the want of the boasted blue sky of Italy, you will be sorry to hear that the sky has been obstinately grey and the atmosphere hazy; and I am satisfied that we have scarcely ever in England so many days together so unfavourable for showing scenery as we have had here. I am afraid you will think me a very smell-fungus, but I believe there has been more humbug about Italy than any other country in the world, and travellers have affected raptures that they have not felt. Whatever I may express, I shall certainly feel very great delight at seeing a certain chien de visage again, a feeling in which my companions will share for they love you dearly. I am, my dear Bess, Your most affectionate J. W.
The tour to Venice was given up, and the family returned home in September, after two months spent at Chêne, including a short visit to Chamounix. The tour in all had lasted nine months. They arrived at Maer on October 1st, 1825.
In spite of any drawbacks which may have arisen from their want of enterprise, this tour was an immense advantage to Emma in enlarging her sympathy and outlook. She never lost her wish to see new scenes, and even to within a few years of my father's death had day-dreams of another tour abroad.
Madame Sismondi to her sister Mrs Josiah Wedgwood.
[CHÊNE], FRIDAY, Sept. 9 [1825].
... Dearest Bessy, how long have I been accustomed to your sweet face as my inmate; you seem by this visit to belong doubly to me, and how do you think I can live without it now? I never felt a parting so much and so long before; there is no describing the desolation of the house—the very cats seemed to feel it. The servants seemed to have pity on me, and came to me with a gentle step and low voice and sad look as if a death had been in the house. They have been expatiating to M. Hermes on the Angels they have had to serve, from whom I have had it again in language that you would all laugh at as exaggerated, but which suits me exactly. I long for a letter, and shall go by and by to the town in spite of the rain to see if I have the good luck of a word from, it seems to me now, the only people I love in the world. I hate everybody here. I believe it is very true that women know how to love only by contrast. I am unwilling to think that it is a fault peculiarly my own, I must correct it if it is; when faults are general to our nature I do not trouble my head about them; it is vain to struggle against them, and if I succeeded in destroying one it is ten to one I did not destroy with it some great charm. Munier gave us a beautiful sermon; it was yesterday the great national fast, a day set apart for an examination of the blessings of heaven on this land, and the faults of the people. It follows the Great Communion, and is a day more sacredly and universally kept than any Sunday, in commemorating the blessings, prosperity, and general happiness of Switzerland. He contrasted it with the misery and sufferings of the Greeks, with very great eloquence but very shortly, and asked our prayers as fellow Christians of a Christian people engaged in a defensive war against extermination, whose sufferings were beyond description. It was impossible to say a few words with greater beauty and feeling and piety. How I wished for you! but when and where do I not wish for you? Yesterday evening above all. I never wanted the girls so much, having a set of young Englishmen to entertain, and only the little Princess and my triste self to amuse them. There were Dr Holland, and Capt. Elton, Mr Allen, the two Prévosts, and Bonstetten.1 They all sat round the dining-table to tea, but I am afraid it looked a triste shop.
1 Karl von Bonstetten (1745—1832), a constant figure in the Sismondi circle, was a Swiss publicist of European repute, and had been in middle life a politician. He was an author of some note, writing on (inter alia) the Laws of the Imagination and on Climate as affecting human character. He had studied in his youth at Cambridge, Leyden, and Paris. At Cambridge he became extremely intimate with the poet Gray. For three months he spent every evening with Gray, arriving at five o'clock and lingering till midnight. Gray could not get over the wonder of Bonstetten's ardour and vitality: "Our breed is not made on this model.... He gives me too much pleasure and at least an equal share of inquietude.... God bless him! I am unable to talk to you about anything else I think," Gray wrote to his friend Nicholls. Rossel describes Bonstetten's old age as "une longue rajeunissement." See Gray, by Gosse, English Men of Letters.
Feeling out of spirits I had invited no one, but on Wednesday poured in the above English recommandés, and made me feel sorry I had not endeavoured to amuse them better. Captain Elton is the brother of Mrs Hallam, a jolly naval Captain full of gaiety and high spirits, finding his own amusement like a jolly tar. I am not sure even he had not taken too much champagne—he was easily pleased, only "hoped to God I would not make him talk French aloud, he did not dislike talking it apart with some pretty woman" and accordingly stole round behind Princess Pietra Santa's sopha and looked very well pleased as long as he could detain her. I felt all my love of the navy character awake within me. How I did wish for my angelic voices to delight him; they still sing in my ears, and I know would have enchanted him....
I staid by myself on Monday till near 3 o'clock before I could be in trim enough even for Sis.... We tried to read German together but it would not do. "Grand Dieu, que j'ai été tourmenté tout le jour par les voix délicieuses de ces enfants, et les airs enchantants qu'elles ont chantés hier. Est-il possible que je ne les entendrai plus?" I can never speak tenderly enough for Sis.
Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Madame Sismondi.
CHALONS, Sept. 9, 1825.
I can hardly reconcile myself to having lost you—to you I could venture to lay open my most foolish feelings, certain of your gentle sympathy. You have certainly the happiest mixture in the world of tenderness and gaiety, and you make everybody happy who lives with you as I have done for the last six months.
Emma Wedgwood to her aunt Madame Sismondi.
MAER, Oct. 7, 1825.
MY DEAREST AUNT JESSIE,
I am very glad to have this little bit to tell you what longings I have to see you again since we parted. I am very sorry you happened to see that horrid letter of Jos's. We meant to have kept it a profound secret from you, the Canal meeting being put off. It gave us such a pang as soon as we heard of it; but never mind for we will come and see you again. You can't think with what pleasure I think of it, but I am afraid it will be a long time first. Charlotte is at the Derby music meeting or she would thank you very much for your letter, and dear M. Sismondi for his nice affectionate little note. I am sure I thank him with all my heart for my share of it. I enjoy being at home very much, though it looks rather rainy and stormy at present. I do hope that you will quite have got over our going away by the time you get this. I cannot bear to think of you as being melancholy. Everybody compliments Mamma on her good looks, and says she looks much better than when she went away. You and my uncle and our charming visit at Chêne are never very long out of my mind. I think it is the happiest time I ever spent, and that is saying a great deal. I will enjoy it again some time.
Good-bye, my own aunt Jessie, EMMA W.
Jessie wrote to Bessy (13 Nov. 1825): "I answered your last lovely letter to Emma because her postscript was irresistible. I love to encourage the tenderness of children I love as if they were my own, and who will, I hope, from time to time supply to me the place of them. It is a tie the tenderer between us if you will let me participate in the choicest blessing you have, or any mother ever had as they tell me here. I am so little disposed to question it that I would they were my own." The natural longings of a childless woman can more than once be traced in Jessie's letters and appear in her attitude towards her nieces. She was happy in winning a warm response to the passionate love she felt for them. My cousin, Julia Wedgwood, told me that the romance of Elizabeth's life was her love for her aunt Jessie, and Emma's was equally warm. She was from early days her aunt's pet child, and the relation only became closer all through her girlhood. Although after her marriage the cares of husband and children prevented frequent intercourse, their love lasted through life.
The only event to be chronicled, in the following winter 1825–6 is the coming of Allen, eldest son of John Wedgwood, to take possession of the little living at Maer. He was still lame from a long illness. In a letter from Kingscote (the John Wedgwoods), in May, 1825, his aunt Fanny Allen wrote:
Allen is still going about on his crutches. He appears feeble, and I should be afraid would never be any better than an invalid. He has invalid habits also, which I am not at all sure is a bad thing for him, as it gives him thought and occupation. Last week I was amazed at his watching the clock to have his tea precisely as the clock was at half-past eight. Eliza had had the tea in for our whole party at eight or perhaps a little before on Jane's account. The general tea was finished at quarter-past eight, and he sat watching the clock till the right minute to order in the tea-kettle. He puts Jane and Eliza something beside their patience, so it is well that he will have an establishment of his own, and arrange his meals according to his own fancy.
This is exactly as I remember him 40 years later. But he had a kindly simple nature, and, like his father, was devoted to flowers and gardening. When he came to Maer, Bessy in her abounding hospitality said to him, "Allen, remember we shall always be glad to see you any and every time." This speech was taken literally, and I believe for years he came up once in the morning to see what letters had come, once in the afternoon, I suppose to see what they were going to do, whilst in the evening when they came out from dinner he was settled in the one armchair. His uncle Jos occasionally talked of representing to him that they sometimes wanted to be alone, but was too kind-hearted ever to carry out his intention. However by 1833 these visits had come to an end, I think through some representation of his brother Robert. Emma Wedgwood wrote in that year: "Nothing can be more modest than he is; indeed I wish he would come in sometimes without being asked. He is so thoroughly amiable that one gets fond of him."
One constant interest of the Maer family during these years was the anti-slavery agitation. Bessy wrote (March 13, 1826): "We are exceedingly interested in the abolition of slavery. Jos has exerted himself wonderfully for a man of his retired habits in getting up a County Petition, and has succeeded and it has been presented. We have also got up a local one from the four neighbouring parishes hereabouts; and I hope shall never let the matter rest. There is certainly a great stir in England at this moment. The Clergy and the Methodists have taken it up very warmly, and now that England is awakened I trust in God this enormity will cease." And two years later: "Sarah [Wedgwood] is absorbed very much by her interest in favour of the Blacks. She spends a great deal in the circulation of anti-slavery publications, and she has herself written or compiled a little pamphlet for the benefit of those who are not sufficiently interested in the subject to seek for information among the many books that are written. We have established a Ladies" Society at Newcastle, but we don't meet with much success among the higher gentry. The set below them (our Rue Basse) is much more impressible." A quaint evidence of the family's interest in the cause is shown by the fact of various little manuscript books of journals and collections of prayers, amongst the Maer records, being bound in the disused covers of Anti-slavery pamphlets.
