78 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, v 



blue with blue-bells. The flowers are here very beautiful, 

 and the number of flowers ; the darkness of the blue of the 

 common little Polygala almost equals it to an alpine gentian. 

 There are large tracts of woodland, [cut down] about once 

 every ten years; some of these enclosures seem to be very 

 ancient. On the south side of Cudham Wood a beech hedge 

 has grown to Brobdignagian size, with several of the huge 

 branches crossing each other and firmly grafted together. 



Larks abound here, and their songs sound most agreeably 

 on all sides; nightingales are common. Judging from an 

 odd cooing note, something like the purring of a cat, doves 

 are very common in the woods. . . . 



The move to Down was made on the 14th Sept., and my 

 mother's third child, Mary Eleanor, was born there on the 

 23rd Sept., 1842, and died on the 16th Oct. 



Emma Darwin to her sister-in-law Mrs Hensleigh 



Wedgwood. 



DOWN, Wednesday [20 Oct. 1842], 



Thank you, my dearest Fanny, for your sweet, feeling 

 note. Our sorrow is nothing to what it would have been 

 if she had lived longer and suffered more. Charles is well 

 to-day and the funeral over, which he dreaded very much. . . . 

 I think I regret her more from the likeness to Mamma, 

 which I had often pleased myself with fancying might run 

 through her mind as well as face. I keep very well and 

 strong and am come down-stairs to-day. 



With our two other dear little things you need not fear 

 that our sorrow will last long, though it will be long indeed 

 before we either of us forget that poor little face. Every 

 word you say is true and comforting. 



I think this letter, so simple and sincere, reveals her 

 nature at any rate it recalls her to me, just as she was, 

 in a way I cannot describe. 



Josiah Wedgwood, after a long failure in health, had a 

 dangerous illness this autumn. 



