1840-1842] Welsh Hospitality 61 



Madame Sismondi to her niece Emma Darwin. 



[CHENE, Sept. llth, 1841.] 



My nephew and niece IsaV and her husband, passed 

 ten or twelve days with us before they left Geneva and I 

 enjoyed their visit. . . . We both like his honest, warm, 

 Welsh heart, Tory as it is, and I found Isab a . even more 

 than affectionate, she was tender, considerate, both of the 

 inconveniences of a small establishment as well as of Sis- 

 mondi's unwellness. . . . They were but one day or two 

 at an inn here, yet in that day they invited Edward Allen 2 

 to dinner and took him with them to Ferney, while Edward 

 and Adele [Drewe], in a whole fortnight or three weeks, 

 never found one day to offer him a kindness, even a dish of 

 tea. It might be the difference of English and Welsh hospi- 

 tality, but that had its difference in warm and cold hearts. 

 I give you these little anecdotes to help my opinion for 

 which I know you will have no respect, ' Oh this is Aunt 

 Tusy-musy, 3 that is the way she is wild after the last person 

 and thing." 



How glad I am C. Darwin continues to mend, tho' it is 

 but so slowly. The illness of one destroys all companionship 

 when there are but two, and my way of life is become very 

 solitary. I hope as the autumn gives us cool weather I 

 may prevail on S. to walk a little, which he does not now 

 at all. I am very glad indeed Erasmus is better, which is 

 very generous of me, for I am not fond of him, yet more 

 shame to me, for he is an excellent man, and I love much 

 your proofs of it. Miss Martineau was hyper heroic to refuse 

 a pension ; not one in the nation would have been a sou the 



1 Daughter of John Allen of Cresselly; she married George Lort 

 Phillips of Lawrenny Park. 



2 Son of Baugh Allen, aged 17. 



3 Leigh Hunt describes how Byron, who apparently invented this 

 word, would " pretend that Braham called ' enthusiasm ' Entoozy- 

 moozy; and in the extraordinary combination of lightness, haste, 

 indifference, and feryour with which he would pitch out that single 

 word from his lips, accompanied with a gesture to correspond, he 

 would really set before you the admirable singer in one of his (theD ) 

 characteristic passages of stage dialogue." 



