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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Fanny Mackintosh Wedgwood   25 April [1851]

Friday the 25 April

My dearest Emma & Charles—

On this day I must write to you knowing that our hearts have one common feeling, & that I need not fear to hurt you—in telling you that Hensleigh & I are just returned from that sad & last work of laying your dear child in her earthly resting place— We went at 9 o’clock & I think every thing was rightly arranged as you would have wished— I feared for Miss Thorley & still more for poor Brodie & she has suffered poor thing most sadly & had to be lifted into the carriage, but since she has been relieved by a long fit of crying & is lying down now— Miss Thorley was more composed than I expected only now & then with bursts of grief—poor thing— There never could have been a child laid in the ground with truer sorrow round her than your sweet & happy Annie— How very kind in you my dear Emma to write me your note—at such a time. I felt it such a comfort on my return to the house to find it, & that you were then as I hoped having Charles with you— I cannot be surprised at yr fears for him it will be hardly possible that he should not be ill— I shall be very anxious to hear how he arrived & I know I shall have a line on Monday from dear Fanny or Elizabeth I am sure he could not have gone through being with us this morning—& have never ceased being thankful that he went yesterday—

I have advised Brodie to go straight home tomorrow she longs to be there & when she finds you want her I hope she will be able to put restraint on herself1 She can be at Down before 9 oclock we have taken Miss Thorley out a drive & she is better— She thanks you with her grateful love for your message & she will write to you fm home— We all leave this sad place together at 9 tomorrow morning— Thank you dearest Emma for telling me I had given you some comfort—& Thank God that you are well—

Yr most affectionate | F E W—2

Dr Gully has been to enquire if I had heard how you & Charles were— he is full of kindness

Footnotes

According to Henrietta Litchfield, Jessie Brodie ‘stayed with us till my sister died in 1851, and then through grief quite lost her self-control, and, indeed, almost her reason, and insisted on leaving’ (Emma Darwin (1915) 2: 86).
Fanny Mackintosh Wedgwood’s full name was Frances Emma Elizabeth Wedgwood.

Bibliography

Emma Darwin (1915): Emma Darwin: a century of family letters, 1792–1896. Edited by Henrietta Litchfield. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1915.

Summary

Tells of the burial of Anne.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-1419
From
Frances Emma Elizabeth (Fanny) Mackintosh/Frances Emma Elizabeth (Fanny) Wedgwood
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 210.13: 33
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1419,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1419.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5

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