Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/20

20 be perfectly easy. Such were the difficulties under which he persevered in the paths of useful knowledge! His name was Joseph Chambers; he lived with us many years, and only left when there was no longer any service for him. He subsequently obtained a 'milk-walk,' at Brompton, where, being enabled to rely on his own book-keeping, he made some little money, and is now landlord of a quiet hostelry at Barnet. He ever retained a very grateful regard for the memory of his little governess." The reader, who might happen to stop at Mr. Chambers's inn at Barnet, would, no doubt, obtain a verification of this narrative of the original joyousness of the young improvisatrice. But we must not pass by the childish days of L. E. L., over the records of which we have not, it is hoped, lingered too long, without a glance at certain habits that were more peculiar to herself, and lay at the root of those literary aspirations which, long before the years of womanhood, indicated the workings of more than a woman's mind, and gave to poetry and romance a store of premature and unexpected treasures. Her genius seems to have sprung up

We have already seen her, in her cousin's description, pushing what she called her "measuring stick" before her, as she took her daily walk in the garden, and deprecating interruption because she had a "beautiful thought" in her head. And this picture may be filled up by the recollections of her brother, who has known her to be pacing up and down the lime-walk for hours in this way—sometimes talking aloud, sometimes repeating verses, oftener in silent thought—the result of all