276 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xix 



a bonnet, which I have got, as I don't expect many balls; 

 and I have a new muslin which will do for two or three. 



Fanny Hensleigh wrote to her hoping that she would be 

 " smart enough ' for her gaieties. A fear of this kind 

 creeps out more than once amongst the cousinhood. Cer- 

 tainly no one thought less of dress in her middle life, 

 although in my memory she was always suitably yet simply 

 dressed. But in her old age she recognised its importance, 

 and I remember her saying that she felt it dismal that her 

 sister Charlotte took so little interest in making herself 

 look nice; in 1883 she wrote: "The two B.s are gone to 

 church, one of them what Bernard thinks quite too swell; 

 and I think her hat too much so. But a person is much 

 happier in my opinion for being fond of dress." 



In the following letter Emma alludes to a rumour of 



Charles Darwin becoming engaged to a Miss . There 



used also to be jokes about Erasmus and Miss Martineau, 

 against whom his father had a great prejudice. 



Emma Wedgwood to her sister-in-law Mrs Hensleigh 



Wedgwood. 



MAER [May 23, 1837]. 



. . . Disputes run very high here upon the subject of 

 Violet. 1 Some of the party are quite convinced it is written 

 by a woman and have some suspicions it is Mrs Marsh. 

 She acted very well when she was here if it is hers, and did 

 not show the least interest on the subject. I think it is 

 much too clever for the author of the two last old men [Old 

 Men's Tales]. Aunt Fanny [Allen] is in a rapture with 

 Sartor and feels quite convinced that Teufelsdrockh is meant 

 for Coleridge, and we want to know from Erasmus whether 

 Mr Carlyle was a friend of Coleridge's. She thinks all the con- 

 versations and thoughts are so exactly like Coleridge. For 

 my part it is such very hard reading that I think I must give 

 it up. 



1 Violet ; or the Danseuse, a pathetic novel that had a great 

 success. The authorship remains a mystery, although it has been 

 much discussed and attributed to as unlikely an author as Captain 

 Marryat, to Lady Brougham's daughter by her first marriage, and 

 in Halkett and Laing's Diet, of Anonymous Literature to Beasley. 



