A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, n 



Charlotte Langton to her sister Emma Darwin. 



MY DEAR EMMA, [ONIBURY, March, 1839]. 



I think it will be a very good plan for your and 

 Elizth.'s letters to be made to do double duty, and save 

 you both a good deal of repetition; and it will serve my 

 purpose very well too, for I sometimes feel it absolutely 

 necessary to give a sign of life when I have not wherewithal 

 to fill a sheet or half a sheet, and on those occasions it will 

 be a great relief to me to have a letter to hook on to. Eliza- 

 beth seems to enjoy her Sundays very much. Her pity is 

 thrown away upon me, our Sunday-School is so short. 

 Religion and virtue is all that I mean to teach, other things 

 being taught at the day school. But as at the end of half- 

 an-hour I find those topics totally exhausted, I am obliged 

 to resort to a little reading, and a great relief it is. ... 



Fanny Allen to Mrs Marsh at Boulogne, 



MY DEAR ANNE, TENET, March 5th [1839]. 



Your letter has been with me, as a companion, for 

 nearly six weeks, watching for a quiet couple of hours that 

 I might tell you what pleasure your warm and affectionate 

 measure of me gives me. I feel myself of greater value 

 from your opinion of me. I believe praise, after the age of 

 vanity, is of great use to character, by raising your own 

 standard, for it must be a natural feeling not to betray the 

 opinion those whom you value greatly have formed of you. 

 Continue to love me, dear Anne, and I will try not to lose 

 an affection so dear to me. Since I wrote last, indeed 

 since you wrote, how much the Wedgwoods have enjoyed 

 and suffered ! Poor Caroline's sorrow is I am afraid yet 

 green. . . . 



Elizth. has suffered from the loss of Emma more than 

 she expected I fancy her joy at Emma's happy prospects, 

 while I was there, kept her from falling back on herself and 

 thinking of her loss, but that time must have come. 



