1851-1853] 



CHAPTER XI 



18511853 



The Great Exhibition of 1851 Jessie Sismondi on Mazzini and the 

 Coup d'etat George Darwin Erasmus Darwin Fanny Allen 

 goes to Aix-les- Bains with Elizabeth Jessie Sismondi's death 

 on March 3rd, 1853 The destruction of Sismondi's and Jessie's 

 journals. 



THE Great Exhibition of 1851, the first of its kind, was a 

 more important event than this generation, who are used 

 to exhibitions and world -fairs every year or so, can imagine. 

 Fanny Allen wrote : " All other Exhibitions are killed by this 

 Aaron's rod. Did I tell you in my last note that the Yorkes 

 mentioned the Queen having written to someone that the 

 first day of the Exhibition was 'one of the happiest days 

 of her very happy life ?' " 



Fanny Allen to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



GREEN ST. [MRS SYDNEY SMITH'S] Saturday 

 [May 10th, 1851]. 



. . . The day I came here, Fanny, Hensleigh, and Erasmus 

 Darwin took me to the Grand Exhibition in Hyde Park, 

 and it certainly is the most beautiful thing I ever saw. 

 We were two hours there and yet I did not see the 10,000th 

 part of what is to be seen, not even the grand avenue en- 

 tirely. The great diamond was the only tiling that I should 

 say was a " failure," as old Wishaw would have said. I 

 expected to see a diamond 10 times the size. . . . 



Mrs Sydney Smith is affectionate and kind as it is possible 

 to be. She gives me all her husband's papers and corre- 

 spondence to look over and read, and gives me the drawing- 

 room to read, write, and to receive my company, if I should 



