1842] Jessie's Love of Geneva 65 



humanity, general good, &c., is nothing in comparison, is 

 to up-root me from hence, and send me to Pescia, and I 

 shudder to think how unhappy it will make me. My eye 

 has rested so long with such intense admiration on these 

 mountains and lake, they have become friends, family, and 

 country to me. I have formed here valuable friendships, 

 and from time to time I see my loved country-people and 

 sometimes my family; in short, I have built here my poor 

 little remnants of happiness and wish I may not break my 

 heart in leaving. 



We are going to dine by and by with the Gr. Duchess 1 

 but how that will agree with Sismondi is a doubt that 

 prevents my enjoying anything in the outing line, and then 

 there is not much to enjoy except a little variety. To 

 seduce S. out, he is always promised that he shall meet no 

 one or but one. This does not suit me at all, as I can do 

 nothing and hear nothing in general conversation, but 

 thrown by numbers into a tete-a-tete I can still bear my 

 part as well as another. 



You ask me for a list of French books. While S. was 

 writing Louis XIV I went through memoirs and letters of 

 those times innumerable. There is a new edition of Mme 

 Sevigne, 12 octavo vols. of which I read every one, and 

 with delight, but the greater part of those you have read 

 too often. Mme de Simiane's letters are worth reading, 

 but in hers one perceives the contrast of the bel esprit of 

 the Province and one of the Capital. It shows what Mack, 

 used to say, the necessity of position to letter writing. . . . 



Emma Darwin to her sister Elizabeth Wedgwood 



[1st Feb. 1842.] 



... I went in with the Hensleighs to the pantomime for 

 the fun of seeing the children's pleasure. The first thing 

 was the most dreadful blood and murder thing with a gibbet 

 on the stage, and I thought it would be very bad for Bro's 

 dreams, however, he stood it, and even the pistols going 



1 Grand Duchess of Wiirtemberg, sister of the Czar Nicholas I. 



