BOOKS.
THE DARWIN FAMILY LETTERS.*
L/TCHFIELD has laid the reading public under a heavy and abiding obligation by these two delightful volumes. They cover a solid century, and deal with four generations of three notable families, the Aliens, Wedgwoods, and Darwine, each marked by strong characteristics, and, especially in the case of the latter two, intimately associated by intermarriage. Yet in the unfolding of this family panorama there is no confusion or complexity. Mrs. Litchfield has provided us with family trees, excellent biographical notes, and just the sight amount of narrative and explanatory links to connect the letters together. Her family affection is never idolatrous, her taste is perfect. From an editorial point of view the task could not very well have been better done—In evidence of her self-effacement, we may note in passing that she has inverted the usual process and printed the letters and not the editorial passages in leaded type—But you may be the best editor in the world, and yet produce a dull book. That was impossible in the present case, in view of the richness of the materials. It is not that the letters are exceptionally brilliant or witty, though Fanny Allen wielded a mordant pen, and the few letters of Henry Wedgwood, Mrs. Darwin's brother, still remembered for his Cambridge epigrams, make one wish for more. But with hardly an exception they are interesting in the best sense of the word as the expression of fine, upright, and independent characters, shrewd but not un- kindly observers, who mixed in the world yet were never worldly, and in whom, above all other qualities, family affection flourished and continued. If one might particularize, the Aliens were distinguished for their vivacity, the Wedgwoods for their austere sincerity, the Darwin for their• simple goodness. The Allen girls—daughters of the squire of Creaselly, John Bartlett Allen, who had fought in the Seven Years' War in the let Foot Guards— were remarkable for their charm, which endeared them to Sydney Smith. The " owd eap'en," as he was called, developed into a domestic tyrant of the moat arbitrary kind, but none of his daughters inherited his black moods. Bessy, the eldest and best beloved, who married Josiah Wedgwood of Miter, son of Josiah Wedgwood of Etruria; Jessie, who married
• Emma Darwin a Coders of Family Letters. Edited by her Daughter, Hearietto Litelifield. 2 yob,. Illnatmted London: John Mummy. 121.. net.]
Sismondi, the historian; Kitty, who became the wife of Sir James Mackintosh; and Frances (Fanny), who never married, all contribute to the "Meer Letters," as Mrs. Litchfield calls them, and with the happiest results. The duties and gaieties of provincial life, varied by visits to London and Paris, theatre-going, presentations at Court, dinners and entertain- ments at which they met celebrities like lime. de Stall, Mrs. Siddone, and Catalan'', fill the record of these early pages, with Elizabeth Wedgwood as the central figure.
Mme. Sismondi's letters are full of interesting refer- ences to literary movements and literary lights, including Byron, Rogers, and the " Lakere," of whom she wrote with considerable bitterness. The war does not loom so large in these letters as one might have expected, but there are signifi. cant references, such as a letter written by Tom Wedgwood, a boy of seventeen, who fought at Waterloo, and describes the battle with a restraint characteristic of his family. As time went on and Mrs. Josiah Wedgwood's health failed, her place as central figure is taken by her youngest daughter Emma, though for many years her aunts, most of them long-lived, are represented in the family correspondence. Emma Wedgwood united to a remarkable extent the fine qualities of her mother's and her father's families. Hers was a strong, sincere, independent nature, absolutely void of pretence and affectation, firm as a rook in trouble. The story of Charles Darwin's courtship is a most touching example of the humility of greatness; the record of his married life proves the truth of his daughter's saying that the natures of her father and mother were complementary. It wan in very truth an ideal union, in spite of certain diver. gences which are noted in the remarkable estimate of her mother's character given by Mrs. Litchfield on pp. 45-49 of the second volume—a little masterpiece of discriminating affection. Mrs. Litchfield describes how the gaiety of her mother in youth gave place in middle life to a serene composure. Her life was anxious and laborious, but she never made much of difficulties. " Though she was the most unselfish person I have ever known, there was no trace in her character of the self-euppression which is often found in those who have had to struggle for unselfishness. Her tastes, her dislikes, her whims even, were all vivid and vividly expressed, and her unselfishness did not proceed from any want of a strong personality." She retained her youthfulness of mind to the end of her long life. But the most striking passage is that which describes her relations with her children, and her honest inability to appreciate her husband's tastes, much as she loved and admired him :— "The keenness of her sympathy never deadened. She lived with her children and grandchildren in every detail of their lives. But she was never a doting mother. Sho knew what we were and never imagined we were perfect or interesting to the outer world. I remember one little speech—not true but still characteristic— do not feel my sons are my sons, only young men with whom I happen to be intimate.' It expresses one fact which lay at the root of her happy relations with her children, grandchildren, and nephews and nieces, her profound respect for their individuality. But I think her most remarkable characteristic was her absolute sincerity. In little things and great things it was the same. She was incapable of playing a part or feigning a feeling. The little things of life best illustrate this, for in great things we we many of us sincere. For instance, in answer to some visitor who remarked how interesting it must be to watch my father's experi.. meats, she told the simple truth—that to her it was not interesting. She once said to my sister that when she married she had resolved to enter into my father's tastes and thought she would be able, but found it impossible. He used to tell how during some lecture at the British Association he said to her, 'I am afraid this is very wearisome to you,' to which she quietly answered, 'Not more than all the rest.' He often quoted this with delight. She was also quite incapable of the weakness of pretending to care for things because it was correct to do so. Few people would venture to say as she did when speaking of Tennyson's Queen Mary, 'It is not nearly as tiresome as Shakespere.' It is fair to add that some plays of Shakespere had given her great pleasure. Her favourite was Muth Ado about Nothing, but she often spoke of the charm of Imogen and Viola. She had no strong taste for poetry, and though she read much and widely, poetry filled but a small place. Still there is a little book in which she copied out poems that she cared for, and there I find the following verses from In Memoriam, It may be truly said that they are an epitome of her life I know that this was Life,—the track
Whereon with equal feet wo fared; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the beak.
But this it was that made me move As light as carrierkirds m air ; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love s
Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
When mighoti.Lore worlS.eleare tenni dud partit, giving 1:1711, UM".
Mrs. Darwin's letters bear out this high testimony ; and those of her husband, and the anecdotes with which Mrs. Litchfield has enriched them, only deepen the impression left by the Life of his essential goodness. The interest of these pages largely resides in the fact that we do not hear so much of Darwin the great captain of science as of Darwin the lover, the husband, the father. In all capacities he shone with a steady radiance. His very limitations only endear him to the average man- e.g., his love of novels with happy endings, if indeed that is a limitation and not rather a proof of his humanity. The Life told us how, in circumstances which would have made nine men out of ten hopeless invalids, he laboriously prepared and wrote his epoch-making works. These letters show how his chronic ill-health never impaired his natural joyousness and gaiety. He was, as his eldest son says, a delightful playmate to his children, and in later life he always treated them with entire trust and freedom. Mrs. Litchfield tells us how " many a time, even during my father's working hours, a sick child Was tucked up on his sofa, to be quiet, and safe, and soothed by his presence." The letters that he wrote to his boys at school are full of the same spirit of help and sympathy and sunny kindliness. Indeed, one can think of no other man of commanding genius besides Scott who was so entirely lovable and livable with. His greatest sorrow was the death of his little daughter Annie, a loss from which neither he nor his wife ever completely recovered. But they were singularly happy in the children who survived, the success of his sons gave him exquisite pleasure, and he lived. to take pride and delight in his grandchildren. Of one of these, Erasmus, the son of Mr. Horace Darwin, born a few months before his grandfather's death, who was killed in action on April 24th last, Mr. Bernard Darwin contributes a brief memoir. He refused a Staff appointment at home in con- nexion with munitions of war, for which his great busi- ness ability admirably fitted him, in order to go abroad with his regiment. Modest, strong, and gentle, be was, in his cousin's words, "only one of many as to whom it may be said that they would have done much ; but whatever he might have achieved, he never could have left a memory more lovable or more honourable." With this tribute we may take leave of Mrs. Litchfield's volumes. We cannot better describe their contents than by saying that they enlarge our circle of friends, so vividly and intimately do they introduce us to a number of delightful people who were either good or great or both together.
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