1840-1842] The Birth of Annie 57 



morning, and he will walk out, but he will not see anyone 

 if he can help it. ... 



Lady Bulwer will not let go her correspondence with 

 Sis. He bears it with Christian patience. If he was to 

 publish his letters they would make a good quarto in the 

 year, his journal makes another, and he has completed a 

 thick vol. of his history since his return. I am interrupted 

 this moment by a letter from Patty Smith. She says her 

 sister Nightingale is near neighbour to Ld. Palmerston, 

 who regards Napier as a [second] Nelson. That notwith- 

 standing the great successes with which he [Palmerston] 

 will meet Parliament, anxiety has aged him ten years in 

 these last ten months. 1 



Give our united love to your husband and a kiss to your 

 child. Remember me kindly to Parslow. God bless you, 

 my dear little Emma. 



It may be mentioned that the epithet " little ' which 

 Jessie Sismondi often uses in writing to my mother does 

 not seem to me characteristic. My mother was not little 

 physically, nor had she the kind of playful or appealing 

 charm which makes the expression suitable. 



Her second child, Anne Elizabeth, was born on March 2nd, 

 1841. 



Emma Darwin to her aunt Madame Sismondi. 



12, UPPER GOWER STREET, May 9, 1841. 



. . . We are thinking of going to Maer on the 1st June. 

 It will be delightful to find ourselves there but I rather 

 dread the journey for Charles. I wish he would let me 

 and the babbies and nurses go by ourselves and he by 

 himself, but he says it would look so bad he can't consent 

 to that plan. 



1 Admiral Sir Charles Napier had distinguished himself at the 

 taking of Acre, in the war between the Porte and Mehemet Ali. 

 Our helping the Sultan against his vassal, at the risk of a war with 

 Prance, was Palmerston's policy, which he had carried through with 

 great difficulty, against the views of the Court and of some of his 

 own colleagues in the Melbourne cabinet. 



