126 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, x 



doubt also if I have been clear, I am sure I have been very 

 candid. I believe I have shown you the utmost of niy 

 feelings on both sides. I long to know your opinion, or 

 feelings rather, tho' they can be of no use. Dearest Bessy, 

 it is very hard to act in opposition to the opinion and 

 feelings of all we have ever loved. I want you to comfort 

 me. We have had here the most delightful reception that 

 could be given. It is impossible to be more attentive to 

 our comfort than Mrs Allen, or more tender than my own 

 Jack. The way he has taught his children to love us 

 before they knew us, tells his own affection. They are the 

 finest children I ever saw ; Harry 1 is I think a beauty, they 

 are not so much spoiled as I expected, but too much so, to 

 be as engaging as they would be naturally. They are the 

 most affectionate children I have ever met with, and that 

 their little faces express, but I perceive no symptom of 

 genius in either. . . . Give our tender love to my dear Jenny, 

 Jos, and all I love, which you will find out from all you love 

 yourself, and God for ever bless my own own. 



Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Jessie Allen. 



SHREWSBURY, Dec. 6 [1818]. 



My being at this place, dearest Jessie, has occasioned a 

 delay of two or three days in my getting your letter, which 

 I did not do ti]l last night, otherwise I could not have let it 

 remain a day unanswered. How little did I think of the 

 painful struggles you were going through, at the time when 

 I imagined you giving and receiving unalloyed pleasure, 

 and how sorry I am that the very circumstances that are 

 so gratifying in other cases, the extreme love of your friends, 

 only serve to add to your difficulties. But this is not now 

 to be considered. You would not yourself wish them to be 

 insensible to your value, to be insensible to your, I will not 

 call it loss, but absence. Your own happiness, my dearest 

 Jessie, is the point upon which we must all fix our eyes, and 

 I pray God to direct you for the best. I cannot read the 



1 H. G. Allen (18151908), Q.C. and M.P. 



