Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/15

Rh shared in L. E. L.'s sports and pastimes, permitted or surreptitious, has a clear impression, that during the days of childhood, not less than from a hundred to a hundred and fifty volumes of the Poets and Novelists (Cooke's edition!) were all read through, forbidden though they were. Books, and books only, whatever could be procured, were her delight from the first moment that she could read. Her capacity for acquiring knowledge was remarkable. The two masters from whom she received French lessons found the task of instructing her a new kind of pleasure; not only were her exercises always ready and correct, but she seemed to meet her teachers half-way, and if told one word, knew another as though by intuition. Yet, it must be admitted, that to the rule "whatever she attempted, she thoroughly mastered," there were two exceptions; the future poetess excelled neither in music, of which she, nevertheless, understood the very soul, nor in an art which, throughout her life, she incessantly practised—penmanship. Her cousin states that, "although Letitia's kind and accomplished friend, Miss Bissett, spared no pains during several years, to impart the same brilliant touch and execution she herself possessed, the attempt to make her proficient in music was vain. "Yet" (she adds) "music seemed to charm and inspire her; for hours she would sit writing upon her slate while any one played or sang." As for her proficiency in penmanship, her brother graphically pictures the fruitless effort. "Learning to write," he says, "was a source of extreme trouble to her, and of frequent imprisonment to me. (This we shall explain presently.) A kind old gentleman who witnessed this distress, and who never believed that any fault whatever