50 [CHAP, m 



CHAPTER III 



18401842 



The ill-health of Charles Darwin The Sismondis at Gower Street 

 Miss Edgeworth on Emma Darwin Anne Elizabeth Darwin, 

 born Erasmus and Miss Martinean Charles and Doddy at 

 Shrewsbury Sismondi's fatal illness The birth of Edmund 

 Langton. 



Emma Darwin to her aunt Madame Sismondi. 



12, UPPER GOWER STREET, Feb. 1 [1840]. 

 MY DEAR AUNT JESSIE, 



It seems very odd to me that I should have been all 

 this time without writing to you, but I have been so helpless 

 and unable to do anything that I never had the energy to 

 write, though I was often thinking of it. Now I am quite 

 well and strong and able to enjoy the use of my legs and my 

 baby, and a very nice looking one it is, I assure you. He 

 has very dark blue eyes and a pretty, small mouth, his nose 

 I will not boast of, but it is very harmless as long as he is a 

 baby. Elizabeth went away a week too soon while he was 

 a poor little wretch before he began to improve. She was 

 very fond of him then, and I expect she will admire him as 

 much as I do in the summer at Maer. He is a sort of grand- 

 child of hers. . . . 



Charles and I were both very much pleased at having a 

 visit from Papa, and he looked comfortable in his arm- 

 chair by the fire, and told us that Gower St. was the quietest 

 place he had ever been at in his life ; and Elizabeth finds it 

 very quiet after Maer, though she had a little private dissi- 



