184^-1845] Our Nurse Brodie 85 



I often wish now that I had made my mother talk more 

 about old times. I have the impression that she shared in 

 the general reverence for her father's character, deeply 

 loved, and was not afraid of him, but that it was her mother 

 who had the first place in her heart and life. 



Madame Sismondi to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



TENBY, 9th Sept. [1843], 



. . . Why sorrow should make us shy is inexplicable to 

 me, but I am certain it does. Is it that a strong feeling of 

 any kind keeps oneself in one's own mind perpetually, so 

 that one cannot help feeling as if we were equally in the 

 minds of others, on the stage as it were ? Nevertheless I 

 begin to make progress. I felt I had when Harry [Allen] 

 was here the other day. In driving with him and talking 

 to him I felt as if I once more enjoyed something. He 

 coaxed me out in the prettiest way you ever saw, and was 

 like his own dear father in making me talk, and seeming 

 interested in what I said, enjoying with a gentle gaiety 

 everything, " the air, the earth, the sky," so that insensibly 

 he made you sympathize with him. . . . 



I was born 25th September, 1843. There were now three 

 children in the nursery. 



Emma Darwin to her sister-in-law Mrs Hensleigh 



Wedgwood. 



DOWN, Wed. [say Oct., 1843]. 



. . . We sent the maids to a concert at Bromley on 

 Monday, and it has done Brodie such a wonderful deal of 

 good that if she could but get to a play or two, I think it 

 would cure her. There have been many breezes in that 

 apartment, but I have told Brodie that I shall not keep 

 Bessy if she is pert to her, and matters have gone very 

 smooth since. Very likely now Brodie is so poorly and over- 



