86 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, vi 



doubt whether it gives her much pleasure. I have promised 

 to send her any letters of yours that will do for circulation. 

 Surtees was really as civil to me as he could be, yet I 

 think him the most incomparably disagreeable man I ever 

 saw, and we used to sit so long after dinner that I used to 

 be ready to die of sleep. Neither sitting upright nor look- 

 ing in the fire would keep me awake. On Monday I left 

 them, and pursuing my journey, sometimes in the public 

 coaches and sometimes in hack chaises, I got home long 

 before dinner. I had rather go in a public coach a great 

 deal, than in a hack chaise by myself, it is so cold and 

 dismal; and one sometimes meets very odd characters in 

 the coach, but one constantly runs the risk of having one's 

 feelings jarred by incivility, which I think is the most 

 disagreeable part of that mode of travelling. I found it 

 very dismal travelling alone, lying down in my clothes 

 because I was to be called at 5 next morning and knew 

 nobody would be up to help me, getting up and sitting by 

 the kitchen fire till it was time to go. All this with a 

 companion would be matter of amusement, but alone it is 

 rather dreary. I found my Elizabeth and her father quite 

 well and glad to see me home again, and my little boys 

 well and in excellent spirits, but they seem to me hardly 

 grown at all. Erasmus Darwin is spending his holidays here. 

 He is an inoffensive lad. Jos is very busy about schools, 

 infirmaries, and those sort of things. Harry says you have 

 got a new lover. Give my love to him and to my dear Jess 

 and Emma. Farewell, my very dear Fanny, believe me 



Ever affectionately yours, 



E. W. 



Emma Allen to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



GENEVA, Jan. Uth [1816]. 



... I congratulate you and all your party on the return 

 of your blessed sun among you, 1 tho' there was no gloom 

 in its absence I can fully feel the joy of its return, and 

 rejoice with you in it with my whole heart. 



1 Bessy's return from Bath and North Cerney. 



