The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson

Author:Susannah Gibson [Gibson, Susannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393881387
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2024-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

Baretti, who had always been such a help with the children, was still peeved that Harry’s death had interfered with the planned Italian trip. He showed his annoyance by encouraging Queeney to rebel against her parents, by arguing continually with his hosts, and once even by musing about Thrale (then pregnant) dying in childbirth and which pretty girl Henry should marry after she was gone. One morning during an argument at the breakfast table, Baretti slammed down his half-drunk cup of tea, fetched his hat and stick, and walked out of the house. He walked all the way to London. It would be four years before he would return to Streatham, but never again on such intimate terms.76

Sophia, the youngest child, turned five that summer. On her birthday, she read for her mother verses from the Epistles and the Gospels. Thrale listened half-heartedly, unable now to muster much enthusiasm for this kind of learning. ‘The Thing is,’ she confessed to The Children’s Book, ‘I have really listened to Babies learning till I am half stupefied - & all my pains have answered so poorly.’ As she wrote on, her thoughts became increasingly dark:

I will not make her Life miserable as I suppose it will be short – not for want of Health indeed, for no Girl can have better, but Harry & Lucy are dead, & why Should Sophy live? The Instructions I labor’d to give them – what did they end in? The Grave.77

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