Volume IX Part 33 (1/2)

Yet how do these poor boasters value themselves upon the advantages their education gives them! Who has not seen some one of them, just come from the university, disdainfully smile at a mistaken or ill-p.r.o.nounced word from a lady, when her sense has been clear, and her sentiments just; and when he could not himself utter a single sentence fit to be repeated, but what he had borrowed from the authors he had been obliged to study, as a painful exercise to slow and creeping parts? But how I digress:

This excellent young lady used to say, 'it was incredible to think what might be done by early rising, and by long days well filled up.'

It may be added, that she had calculated according to the practice of too many, she had actually lived more years at sixteen, than they had at twenty-six.

She was of opinion, 'that no one could spend their time properly, who did not live by some rule: who did not appropriate the hours, as nearly as might be, to particular purposes and employments.'

In conformity to this self-set lesson, the usual distribution of the twenty-four hours, when left to her own choice, were as follows:

For REST she allotted SIX hours only.

She thought herself not so well, and so clear in her intellects, [so much alive, she used to say,] if she exceeded this proportion. If she slept not, she chose to rise sooner. And in winter had her fire laid, and a taper ready burning to light it; not loving to give trouble to the servants, 'whose harder work, and later hours of going to bed,' she used to say, 'required consideration.'

I have blamed her for her greater regard to them than to herself. But this was her answer; 'I have my choice, who can wish for more? Why should I oppress others, to gratify myself? You see what free-will enables one to do; while imposition would make a light burden heavy.'

Her first THREE morning hours

were generally pa.s.sed in her study, and in her closet duties: and were occasionally augmented by those she saved from rest: and in these pa.s.sed her epistolary amus.e.m.e.nts.

Two hours she generally allotted to domestic management.

These, at different times of the day, as occasions required; all the housekeeper's bills, in ease of her mother, pa.s.sing through her hands.

For she was a perfect mistress of the four princ.i.p.al rules of arithmetic.

FIVE hours to her needle, drawings, music, &c.

In these she included the a.s.sistance and inspection she gave to her own servants, and to her sister's servants, in the needle-works required for the family: for her sister, as I have above hinted, is a MODERN. In these she also included Dr. Lewen's conversation-visits; with whom likewise she held a correspondence by letters. That reverend gentleman delighted himself and her twice or thrice a week, if his health permitted, with these visits: and she always preferred his company to any other engagement.

Two hours she allotted to her two first meals.

But if conversation, or the desire of friends, or the falling in of company or guests, required it to be otherwise, she never scrupled to oblige; and would on such occasions borrow, as she called it, from other distributions. And as she found it very hard not to exceed in this appropriation, she put down

ONE hour more to dinner-time conversation,

to be added or subtracted, as occasions offered, or the desire of her friends required: and yet found it difficult, as she often said, to keep this account even; especially if Dr. Lewen obliged them with his company at their table; which, however he seldom did; for, being a valetudinarian, and in a regimen, he generally made his visits in the afternoon.

ONE hour to visits to the neighbouring poor;

to a select number of whom, and to their children, she used to give brief instructions, and good books; and as this happened not every day, and seldom above twice a-week, she had two or three hours at a time to bestow in this benevolent employment.

The remaining FOUR hours

were occasionally allotted to supper, to conversation, or to reading after supper to the family. This allotment she called her fund, upon which she used to draw, to satisfy her other debits; and in this she included visits received and returned, shows, spectacles, &c. which, in a country life, not occurring every day, she used to think a great allowance, no less than two days in six, for amus.e.m.e.nts only; and she was wont to say, that it was hard if she could not steal time out of this fund, for an excursion of even two or three days in a month.

If it be said, that her relations, or the young neighbouring ladies, had but little of her time, it will be considered, that besides these four hours in the twenty-four, great part of the time she was employed in her needle-works she used to converse as she worked; and it was a custom she had introduced among her acquaintance, that the young ladies in their visits used frequently, in a neighbourly way, (in the winter evenings especially,) to bring their work with them; and one of half a dozen of her select acquaintance used by turns to read to the rest as they were at work.