FullReads

It may be, again, that ever so many years hence, when Mr. Darwin’s earth- worms shall have buried Oropa hundreds of feet deep, some one sinking a well or making a railway-cutting will unearth these chapels, and will believe them to have been houses, and to contain the exuviae of the living forms that tenanted them. In the meantime, however, let us return to a consideration of the chapel as it may now be seen by any one who cares to pass that way.

The work consists of about forty figures in all, not counting Cupids, and is divided into four main divisions. First, there is the large public sitting-room or drawing-room of the College, where the elder young ladies are engaged in various elegant employments. Three, at a table to the left, are making a mitre for the Bishop, as may be seen from the model on the table. Some are merely spinning or about to spin. One young lady, sitting rather apart from the others, is doing an elaborate piece of needlework at a tambour-frame near the window; others are making lace or slippers, probably for the new curate; another is struggling with a letter, or perhaps a theme, which seems to be giving her a good deal of trouble, but which, when done, will, I am sure, be beautiful. One dear little girl is simply reading “Paul and Virginia” underneath the window, and is so concealed that I hardly think she can be seen from the outside at all, though from inside she is delightful; it was with great regret that I could not get her into any photograph. One most amiable young woman has got a child’s head on her lap, the child having played itself to sleep. All are industriously and agreeably employed in some way or other; all are plump; all are nice looking; there is not one Becky Sharp in the whole school; on the contrary, as in “Pious Orgies,” all is pious–or sub-pious–and all, if not great, is at least eminently respectable. One feels that St. Joachim and St. Anne could not have chosen a school more judiciously, and that if one had daughter oneself this is exactly where one would wish to place her. If there is a fault of any kind in the arrangements, it is that they do not keep cats enough. The place is overrun with mice, though what these can find to eat I know not. It occurs to me also that the young ladies might be kept a little more free of spiders’ webs; but in all these chapels, bats, mice and spiders are troublesome.

Off the main drawing-room on the side facing the window there is a dais, which is approached by a large raised semicircular step, higher than the rest of the floor, but lower than the dais itself. The dais is, of course, reserved for the venerable Lady Principal and the under-mistresses, one of whom, by the way, is a little more mondaine than might have been expected, and is admiring herself in a looking-glass–unless, indeed, she is only looking to see if there is a spot of ink on her face. The Lady Principal is seated near a table, on which lie some books in expensive bindings, which I imagine to have been presented to her by the parents of pupils who were leaving school. One has given her a photographic album; another a large scrap-book, for illustrations of all kinds; a third volume has red edges, and is presumably of a devotional character. If I dared venture another criticism, I should say it would be better not to keep the ink-pot on the top of these books. The Lady Principal is being read to by the monitress for the week, whose duty it was to recite selected passages from the most approved Hebrew writers; she appears to be a good deal outraged, possibly at the faulty intonation of the reader, which she has long tried vainly to correct; or perhaps she has been hearing of the atrocious way in which her forefathers had treated the prophets, and is explaining to the young ladies how impossible it would be, in their own more enlightened age, for a prophet to fail of recognition.