252 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP. XVH 



through her desolation alone, and she wished not to be 

 thought about or considered, but to be left to rebuild her 

 life as best she could and to think over her precious past. 

 This wish for obscurity came out in her eager desire to get 

 the first sight of her neighbours over, and then, as she said, 

 " they will not think about me any more." 



Emma Darwin to her son Leonard. 



Friday. 



MY DEAREST LEO, 



It is always easier to write than to speak, and so, 

 though I shall see you so soon, I will tell you that the 

 entire love and veneration of all you dear sons for your 

 Father is one of my chief blessings, and binds us together 

 more than ever. When you arrived on Thursday in such 

 deep grief, I felt you were doing me good and enabling me 

 to cry, and words were not wanted to tell me hew you felt 

 for me. 



Hope [Wedgwood] expresses a feeling that I should not 

 be pitied after what I have professed and had been able to 

 be to him. This is put very badly in my words; but hers 

 gave me great happiness. 



My father wrote in his Autobiography: You all know 

 your mother, and what a good mother she has ever been to all 

 of you. She has been my greatest blessing, and I can declare 

 that in my whole life I have never heard her utter one word 

 which I would rather have been unsaid. She has never 

 failed in kindest sympathy towards me, and has borne with 

 the utmost patience my frequent complaints of ill- health and 

 discomfort. I do not believe she has ever missed an oppor- 

 tunity of doing a kind action to anyone near her. I marvel 

 at my good fortune, that she, so infinitely my superior 

 in every single moral quality, consented to be my wife. 

 She has been my wise adviser and cheerful comforter 

 throughout life, which without her would have been during 

 a very long period a miserable one from ill-health. She 

 has earned the love and admiration of every soul near her." 



Shortly after my father's death, my mother wrote down 

 notes of memories that she wished to keep fresh in her mind, 

 some in the form of a little diary of what they had done 

 together ; from these I give the following extracts : 



