Much better than a dog
Leanda de Lisle
EMMA DARWIN: THE INSPIRATIONAL WIFE OF A GENIUS by Edna Healey Headline, £20, pp. 372, ISBN 074727579B Why should we be interested in the wife of a genius any more than his first cousin or his hest friend? Well, if we are interested in his social and political world we might care to meet the wife that shaped his domestic landscape. Edna Healey also suggests that as 'a wife of fame' Emma Darwin represents a type. But the best
reason to read a biography is the subject being interesting in his or her own right. And so, just how inspiring was Emma Darwin?
The picture of her on the cover suggests Betsy Duncan Smith in ringlets, an ideal Victorian wife; not the kind of woman you'd have thought would engage the attention of Edna Healey who, although old enough to be Betsy's grandmother, chose Oxford over secretarial college. Unfortunately, however, while it transpires that Emma Darwin spoke several languages and read widely, she was also very much the 'angel in the house'. She tended Charles when he suffered his bouts of flatulence, did good works for small animals and was, in short, rather dull.
Healey spends the first two chapters looking into the descent of the Darwins, specifically the talented Wedgwood family, but by chapter three we meet our heroine and things begin badly — for the subject of a biography, at any rate. Emma spent her childhood 'lapped in love', which gave her 'a stability and tranquillity that marked her all her life'. How much I would have preferred it if she'd had to overcome something grim. Adored and admired by all, Emma was, nevertheless, beginning to look as if she had been left on the shelf when her friend and relative Charles Darwin started to think about marriage.
Ever methodical, Darwin wrote two columns of arguments for and against his marrying. Under the 'For' column he put 'Constant companion (84 friend in old age), who will feel interested in one — object to be beloved and played with — better than a dog, anyhow '. Under 'Against' he put Not forced to visit relatives ... Perhaps my wife won't like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool.' Healey's book comes to life whenever his words are on the page. Emma, meanwhile, did indeed prove much better than a dog and they became a close and devoted couple.
How, then, did she influence his work? Charles described Emma as his 'wise adviser and cheerful comforter'. She made his work easier in the sense that she provided a more comfortable environment than he might otherwise have enjoyed, and his marriage had some effect on his thought processes. The death of their ten-year-old daughter, Annie, confirmed his loss of faith, but he accepted that his wife remained a believer, and his unwillingness to distress her tempered his agnosticism.
After years of putting up with the smells of plants rotting in green slime and the `skeletonising' of animal or bird carcasses, Emma had to brace herself for the publication of The Origin of Species, but Charles's book did not overtly reject the idea of a Creator. I am not sure that this amounts to Emma inspiring Charles on any level, but if she is in fact merely the wife of a genius, Edna Healey has nonetheless managed to produce a gently enjoyable biography.
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