[chap, hi
 

CHAPTER III

1840—1842

The ill-health of Charles Darwin—^The Sismondis at Gower Street
—Miss Edgeworth on Emma Darwin—^Anne Elizabeth Darwin,
born—Erasmus and Miss Martineau—Charles and Doddy at
Shrewsbury—Sismondi's fatal illness—The birth of Edmund
Langton.
 

Emma Darwin to her aunt Madame Sismondi.

12, Upper Gower Street, Feb. 7 [1840].

My dear aunt Jessie,

It seems very odd to me that I should have been all
this time without writing to you, but I have been so helpless
and unable to do anything that I never had the energy to
write, though I was often thinking of it. Now I am quite
well and strong and able to enjoy the use of my legs and my
baby, and a very nice looking one it is, I assure you. He
has very dark blue eyes and a pretty, small mouth, his liose
I will not boast of, but it is very harmless as long as he is a
baby. Ehzabeth went away a week too soon while he was
a poor little wretch before he began to improve. She was
very fond of him then, and I expect she will admire him as
much as I do in the suramer at Maer. He is a sort of grand¬
child of hers. . . .

Charles and I were both very much pleased at having a
visit from Papa, and he looked comfortable in his arm¬
chair by the fire, and told us that Gower St. was the quietest
place he had ever been at in his life; and EHzabeth finds it
very quiet after Maer, though she had a little private dissi-