2&o A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xx 



and ever will be one of the sweetest beings the sun ever 

 shone on. ... I suspect it is with no small pleasure 

 Sismondi anticipates having his wife to himself this autumn 

 and winter; it is a treat that he has been very long without, 

 and I feel it has been hard on him to have seen so much 

 of people he could never get a taste for, no more than they 

 could for him. But it is a great comfort for me to observe 

 how perfect Jessie's affection is for him. " He is quite 

 sufficient for her happiness, and she adopts with such 

 admirable grace all his tastes and even his whims. I believe 

 there is one thing keeps me out of his favour, which is I 

 cannot read up to what he writes. I cannot admire or 

 approve of all his notions, and he is too sensitive for me 

 to dare to criticise them. He appears to me the most 

 conservative man I know, as far as cherishing old ways, 

 or what I should call old abuses, and opposing all improve- 

 ment. Not even infant schools and savings-banks escape 

 his condemnation, while beggary meets with his strenuous 

 support. Of course the present state of distress in the 

 trading world confirms him in his system, 1 and I fancy his 

 pen is going full tilt on the subject. But he has such an 

 intemperate horror of cotton manufacture that he could 

 not bear my saying it had added to the comfort of our poor 

 in giving them sheets in their beds, which in my youth few 

 of them knew. 



Madame Sismondi to her niece Emma Wedgivood 



PESCIA, 16 July, 1837- 



. . . Dear Joe, how heartily I wish him health and long 

 life to enjoy the happiness his wise choice has insured. 

 His excessive modesty has always kept him ignorant how 

 tenderly he was loved. I dare say he does not know that 

 he has alwaj^s been the dearest of my nephews, that I have 

 still by me the few long and affectionate letters he ever wrote 

 to me, and that in '35, I read over what he had written in 



1 See p. 129 for his views on Political Economy. 



