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Tri Coll
May 4 1839

My dear Mrs Buckland

I am truly sorry that I can not promise myself the delight of a visit to Oxford at the time you mention. Peacock tells me it will be impossible for him to come but he sends his best thanks. When we went out yesterday after lectures and I suspect will not return before Sunday night or Monday morning so he must answer for himself. [Daubny?] has offered him a bed at Magdalen Coll. If I cannot come in season, perhaps I may come out of season Dr Buckland is to be in London next Wednesday and so am I. Now I think it would be a nice round about for me to return to Cambridge by the way of Oxford halting there one or two days. And why not a water party? Oh! but I beg your pardon you are not now in travelling condition. But could we not ship [your sofa] in a long boat and then float you down the stream of Old Father Thames? Cheerful faces and cheerful talk would do your heart good, and the shifting scene would fill your soul with thoughts that might influence the future fortunes of your next boy and make him a navigator as great as Cook or Columbus. But I will not anticipate pleasures that may not come. Give my kindest remembrances to Mrs [?] and Mary and my love to all your children. In my present condition and temper I ought not to talk of a visit, but a visitation. Since my return from Norwich I have been tormented by schimatic gout, A name that implies a legion of [?]. I am dyspeptic and hypochondriac, crusty and crabbed, mopish and mulish. My stomach is a manufactory of vinegar and I have no bowels of compassion. My nights are without sleep, my days a kind of sustained torpor that leaves me alive to nothing but what is evil and as for my hair, I verily believe it has and [?] fermentation, so some are its impressions from without and its notions from within. Should I come down next week you ought to slam your door in the face of such a miserable mountain of maladies. But perhaps you will let me in and find some charm to drive away the blue [legion?] that has taken such forcible possession of my [quarters] [?] so that I may be my self again. And after all there have been worse men that the old Adam and it is a shame to make a [?] [?] as you have done seeing that his [?] fault was a compliance with one who was naughtier than himself.
Believe me dear Mrs Buckland

Very truly yours

A Sedgewick

P.S. In spite of the gout I rode twenty miles yesterday and to-day I walked five miles before breakfast and had you seen the rate at which I rode yesterday and strode today you wd have said that I was leading the blue gentleman a dance. But I cannot part company, they follow me like dogs after a trail.

Postmark
16 May 1831
Cambridge

Dear Mrs Buckland

I am this moment going out on a two days excursion from Cambridge and as one term is drawing to a close I am desirous of again assuring you how much we shall be delighted to see you in Cambridge - I have written to Mrs Murchison whom I fully expect to meet you. Pray has Dr. Buckland had any communication with [Langham?] on this subject as he promised in his last? I would write to [Langham?] this eve but I don't know where to address him as I am told he is [away] from home. Excuse this scrawl. I am writing in a dreadful hurry while a friend waits at our gates in a gig. If I delay longer I shall make him break our [commitments/commandments?]

[Most truly yours]

A. Sedgewick

Saturday morn.

Trinity College

Feb 28th 1838

My dear Mrs Buckland
Could you see the pile of letters I have still before me I think you would pity me and had you seen the struggles I have been making to clear off my epistolary debts, I think you would have given me an encouraging laugh, and as for your drops of pity - they would have been shed for the unfortunate correspondents who were doomed to read my handwriting. Now it is not very long since I have seen you and you have sent me a kind note in such a light hand quite unlike the pretty [pothooks?] most ladies now write and which we mortal men can read as the u's, m's and n's and i's [?] are all just alike so that the characters have no character at all that I am bound to write my best. In short I wish to tell you that I shall rejoice to be a sponsor for your little by. And that the temptation of a visit to Oxford is so very great that no ordinary engagement will prevent me from accepting it. It will be a great pride to me to have a little Sedgewick among your bairns that after all is it not a sad business to do things of this kind by Deputy, and would it not be far betters for me to have some little Sedgewicks of my own and so I will by the beard of old [Time?] Nay that's a foolish oath, as old Time has nothing to do with such matters. Let me therefore rather swear by the torch of Hymen and the wings of love that I will have my [?] encircled by olive branches that you shall be Godmother to the Sedgewick that is to be and that your 'guide man' shall stand for my young master so there's a bargain and say done. During the last three months I have had [?] [service/services?] dined almost to death-frozen almost to death-Cathedral service twice a day and each [?] [?] a Cathedral sermon and another at the Country Hospital - not to mention a short course of geological lectures for the benefit of the intellectual digestion of a [?] eating generation of East Anglian Aldermen and Alderwomen. No matter I have stood it all to admiration and have turned out plump as [?] theology ought to be. By the way I thought Dr. Buckland was looking rather thin but he said he was quite well and I don't know that a man is any better for the dilatations of certain large flat muscles that cover the region where pity and compassion are said to dwell. But after all a convex superficus is better than an angular one - to that I hope the doctor will soon come. After our anniversary I went down to Greenwich and spent the day with my dear friend Mrs [Aire/Airs?]. Home I had not seen since last Spring, twelve months since that time she has added a fine boy to the family [quiver?]. And if there be any trusting to outward signs she may before long [?] another [?] domestic arithmetic. But what can a Senior Fellow know of such signs? I can say I am only blundering. Time has made a sad change to Mrs. A since I saw her. She has lost a front tooth and looks very thing and ten years older than she did. Do you remember when she made any lady [?] I think it was in Exeter College when she glided to the piano cast up her beautiful and dark eyes, pushed back her raven locks from her cheek and struck up Hebe's Hymen. She was and ever will be once of the kindest and most charming natural characters ever adorned the face of woman, their moral beauties can only fade in the life itself but her personal attractions have already in a considerable measure disappeared. By the way I remember writing you a strange rigmarole about Mrs [Aire/Airs]. In a former letter. I don't know how many years since I saw Mary Conybeare while in town and went with her to Chantrey's studio. Is she not a very charming young person? She looks stronger than she was but I fear she is only delicate.

Best Regards to my Brother and
Best love to all your little geologists
Most truly yours
A. Sedgewick

P.S. I am turning back (before I seal this sheet up) to dot and i's and cross the t's. I could not help thinking that I had made a foolish [swagger?] about my bad writing considering the abominable [?] I have been sending you. Since I broke my arm my forefinger is quite stiff and my right ulnan nerve is often partially paralysed so that my hand gets worse and worse and still I often write with considerable pain

Mrs Buckland
Oxford

The Athenaeum
Nov ? [18]72

My dear Mrs Buckland

I am off by coach in a few minutes, but before I start I will try to [leave] this at the Sloppian Coffee House where your [gude man?] is disporting himself. Be it known to you by those present that my dog's wife - [Zelept?] Mustard, was safely delivered of a son about three months since - that said son was christened Pepper and is growing fast in all canine accomplishments. Bu the beast and his mother are both at Norwich, and as there is no coach from Cambridge to Norwich direct, I have not ventured to send either the mother or son, or to trust them to tender mercies of guard and coach driver. This is the cause of the delay. But if my friend Frank is become heartsick for want of Pepper I will do my best to have him sent to Oxford. The best way will be to send him to London sometime when Dr. Buckland is there. I shall be in Norwich [?] at my sister's residence on Dec 1st. Ant time after that day I can do the [?]. So much for canine matters - Last night we had a long discussion on canine teeth in which I was a listener. Indeed I was partly compelled to hold my jaw by a bad cold which has so damaged the vox humana and top of my organs, that at present they emit no sounds but such as are utterly beastly and inarticulate. The Doctor fought [lustily] but had I spoken I would have had a tilt at him for one sentence. He said there was evidence enough without more, and that he would not bring up his reserves to fight on the side which was already victorious. Those were not his words but they express his meaning. Now this will not do while there is doubt will as one [?], had you seen Dr. Grant opining doubts and difficulties you would have smiled and perhaps have thought that all the candles must be [lighted] before the mists clear. Be this as it may I do hope Dr Buckland will bring every chief block and payment which can give light to these dark [jaws?]. The anatomical evidence seems to preponderate greatly on one side, and yet I wish that side to lose for I have no idea that a warm blooded animal should dispose himself by restling away the [?] monsters of Horsfield.

My kindest love to all your little ones
Ever Vy ty yours
A Sedgewick

My dear Mrs Buckland

I have packed [young?] Pepper in a hamper, and mean to start him tomorrow by the Telegraph to London directed to Dr. Buckland, Salopian Coffee House. Mrs Mustard the Mother has I fear gone after strange dogs, as the puppy is not so well bred as I could wish. such as he is I send him for Frank with my best love.
My kind remembrances to your young ones - and kiss little Adam Sedgewick for me.

Most tr[ul]y yours

A Sedgewick

After I leave Cambridge my address for a week or two will be Dent near Kendal

Cambridge Oct 7 [1847]

My dear Mary

Many letters require speedy answers so in the first place I acknowledge your Mamma's kind note and send her my thanks for it. If an honest man be the noblest work of God, why should not an honest woman be put on as high a pinnacle of glory? I ment to write to you a letter of congratulation to reach you on the 13th, your birthday. But after the 10th I shall be on the wing for several days and have perhaps no time for writing. It is therefore best for me now to write to you tho' I am up to the ears in Examination papers; and [verily?] out of temper having not yet received one of my Norwich boxes which contained the whole series of my Welsh Geological Journals and ought to have come on Monday. My servant is going off to town to look for it and as soon as I am at liberty I shall come back to Norwich should the stray box not have come. But I beg your pardon for [bothering?] you with my own private troubles. On the 13th your Mamma will give you from me a small remembrance of your Norwich visit, wear it for my sake and accept my heart's best wishes with it. May your life be a life of happiness and may every step you take be a step nearer to heaven! May the blessings of health and romantic love be your [?] [?] [?] I trust that you will have many happy years after the writer of this note is under the sod and that you will continue to think kindly of one who loved your Father and Mother and loved you as a friend - tho' he is now jogging on in the season of the [?] and [leaf?] while you are [?] away the verdant blossom of early Spring. I do not mean to be poetical but plain truth you know is sometimes good poetry - therefore plain words honestly spoken. May God bless you and make you happy! Give my kind regards to your Father and Mother and believe me
Ever your affectionate friend

A Sedgewick

P.S. Isabella is here and we leave Cambridge for Yorkshire at the end of the week. Did she know that I was writing to you I am sure she would send her love.

N.B. You must shut this note up and read it on the morning of the 13th - which will do as well, you may put on the [?] of [it's time?] a day or two and appear you [?] it on the 13th