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190 THE JPOBTRAIT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Chapter Iii. A Few Days After The Imluck...
follies absurd of prejudices society niay , and go inake on for a ever public —I care examp nothing le of themselves for . the opinion , the
of fools , and I feel sure all right-minded people would support me , " I added , with great vehemence , and went on , as was my wont , to
abuse the moral code , or rather the social barriers which seemed erected to keep the well-disposed from acting , and retain the idle
in their idleness . " If you knew the meaning , my dear child , of being placed under
a social ban , answered Mrs . Richards with a smile , " you would not risk it for the sake of the prettiest shop ever seen ; so pray
abandon this project , and try another more in _keei _^ ing with the taste As — niy prejudices heart was of your not unalterabl acquaintances y fixed . " on my fancied " bijou '
of a drawing-room with a counter , after Mrs . Richards had rehearsed a few dire martyrdoms of women and girls who had renounced their
idle privileges an ( i taken to actual work , I gave in ; yet not without a feeling of degradation as I descended from my pedestal and did
homage to the bugbear of custom . To have run away with a common soldier or a footman _woiild have been as dust in the balance : for
the soldier might have been pre-eminently bewitching and a hero —the footman , a genius in disguise ; but what under the sun could
be said of a shop ? I began to hold in virtuous contempt the reputed wisdom of the
public , and more than doubted the divinity of the mass . I lost faith in the many , and resolved to reverence only the few .
" Ten years hence , " niy aunt used to say , _" you may act as you please , for in ten years you will be better able to calculate
consequences Calculate . " consequences ! what a disagreeablee ocupation ; already
the world was beginning to have a cold look , and the people in it as if their hearts ( if they had such warm , soft substances
within them ) were frozen , waiting with anxious faces for a thaw . drawing It was at 1 . last unanimously resolved that I should give lessons in
It may be presumed that as the occupation harmonized with my taste for art , I entered upon it con amove . Yet the fact was
otherwise ; I adopted the scheme because it appeared the only one I could at that time undertake * and because I felt myself fully
competent to perform all that would be required of me as a teacher of drawing to the young ladies of Carrington . I had a presentiment
that none of my pupils would aim at producing great works , or dream of becoming students of art in the proper sense , and my
presentiment was verified after a few months' experience , greatly to my discouragement and weariness . The constant repetition of
shreds of landscapes , paltry copies of flowers , butterflies , and the like small subjectsexhausted my patienceuntil at length the sight
of the cottage I had , to keep on the perpendi , cular , the stiff bushes
I had to convert into trees , the bridges I had to prevent from
190 The Jpobtrait.
190 THE JPOBTRAIT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1861, page 190, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051861/page/46/
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