HOME LIFE 21 
off by yellow fever, January 1, 1840. Then came nearly two 
years' painful anxiety over the two youngest sisters, who 
were at school in London under Mrs. Teed, at Little Campden 
House. A few weeks after Joseph set sail in the Erebus^ 
in the autumn of 1839, Ehzabeth fell ill, and had to winter at 
Hastings under the care of a great-aunt, Mrs. Walford Taylor, 
and to undergo a course of treatment in the next summer under 
Dr. Jephson at Leamington, where she was joined by Mary 
Harriette at the beginning of the hoHdays in July. Worse 
followed. On reaching Glasgow, Ehzabeth fell back ; Mary 
was found to be very ill. With some difficulty they were taken 
to Jersey at the end of September. Lady Hooker nursed 
them with the help of her capable and devoted eldest daughter ; 
after much suffering, Ehzabeth recovered, Mary Harriette 
slowly faded away. 
Brothers and sisters were warmly attached to one another. 
Joseph's affections were not spread afield ; they were the more 
intense for being concentrated upon his family circle — ' the 
seven persons I really love ' — and a few other friends. Writing 
home from the Antarctic after receiving the news of his brother's 
and sister's death, he accuses himself of the fault of selfishness. 
More justly, perhaps, he would have used the word self-centred ; 
he always has the full sympathy of his correspondents, and his 
own letters show abundant care for those dear to him. 
The home regime was sufficiently firm. Sir Wilham, courtly, 
handsome, attractive, perhaps laid weight mainly on the duty 
of pure motive and honourable conduct ; Lady Hooker was 
also a strict disciplinarian and a stickler for the forms of 
reverence which the manners of her young days demanded of 
children for their parents. When Joseph, for instance, came 
in from school after a long and tiring walk home, he must 
present himself to his mother, but was not allowed to sit down 
in her presence without permission, and was kept standing 
until it was clear that discipline had conquered inclination. 
In their boyish days, William, the firstborn, was clearly 
the mother's favourite. He was the more clever, lively, and 
forthcoming. In Lady Hooker's letters to her father, Dawson 
Turner, Joseph as a rule appears rather as the plodder without 
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