288 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xx 



I came away, sitting on the bed watching his poor little 

 miserable face, which was enough to make anybody cry to 

 look at. It was the only time I saw her crying. The day 

 we almost expected to hear of his death, a letter came to 

 say he had rallied and taken to food and had laughed. 

 You may fancy how happy we were. Your letter came in 

 that happy morning too. 



I have been meeting Monsieur Sismondi's name very 

 often lately in Wilberforce's Life with expressions of great 

 respect. I am disappointed in the Life. His dull sons 

 have put in such a quantity of repetition that one is quite 

 weary of the same religious sentiment repeated 50 times 

 over in nearly the same words. And they have been very 

 spiteful about poor old Clarkson, who is blind and 80 years 

 old, which I think might have made them careful not to 

 hurt him, and one feels very sure their father never would. 

 Wilberforce's letters, I think, are not very agreeable or clever, 

 but very sweet (in a good sense). 



Elizabeth's smart gown is much admired and just the 

 becoming colour. She has worn it twice which shews she 

 is getting extravagant. The first time, I must own, I was 

 obliged to be rather strict with her to make her put it on. 

 I have been perpetrating a practical joke with Elizabeth's 

 help, the first we were ever guilty of in our lives. We 

 have been writing a letter from d'Etchegoyen to Uncle 

 Allen proposing a visit to Cresselly. There were some 

 beautiful sentences in it extracted from a real letter of 

 his to Harry which arrived not long ago. I am not sure 

 that it will come very apropos if Uncle Allen is not quite 

 recovered from the gout. 



Emma Wedgwood to her aunt Madame Sismondi* 



MAER, Nov. 1, 1838. 



How happy you must feel that all fear of war is over. 1 

 I don't at all understand the merits of the case, but I admire 



1 See p. 130. 



