FullReads

“In helping to unpack my father’s library, I had discovered a copy of Walton and Cotton’s ‘Angler,’ similar in every respect, but its good condition, to the one that had charmed me at the inn. Sometimes the precious volume was lent to me, and with it in my lap, and my arms round the ropes of the swing, I passed many a happy hour. What fancies I wove after studying those quaint, suggestive old prints! As sweet as that ‘contexture of woodbines, sweet-briar, and myrtle’ in which the anglers sat and sipped orange punch at Tottenham. The characters of Piscater, Venater, and Auceps, and the style of their conversations by the wayside, I found by no means unlike those of the Pilgrim’s Progress. The life-like descriptions of nature (none the less attractive at my age from being quaintly mixed with fable and symbolism, and pointed with pious morals) went straight to my heart; and though I skipped many of the fish chapters, I re-read many of the others, and ‘The Complete Angler’ did not a little to feed my strong natural love for out-door life and country pleasures, to confirm my habit of early rising, and to strengthen my attachment to the neighbourhood of a river.

“But my father’s library furnished another volume for my garden studies. From him I inherited some of that taste which finds a magic attraction in dictionaries and grammars; and I only wish that I had properly mastered about half the languages in which it was the delight of my girlhood to dabble. As yet, however, I only looked at the ‘grammar corner’ with ambitious eyes, till one day there came upon me the desire to learn Russian. I asked my father for a Russian grammar, and he pointed out the only one that he possessed. My father seldom refused to lend us his books, and made no inquiries as to why we wanted them; but he was intensely strict about their proper treatment, so that we early learnt to turn over leaves from the top, to avoid dogs’ ears, and generally to treat books properly and put them away punctually. Thus I got the grammar, and carried it off to the swing. Alas! it was not even Russian and English. It was a fat old French edition, interleaved for notes. The notes were my father’s, and in English, which was of some assistance, and I set myself resolutely to learn the alphabet. But my progress was slow, and at last I got my father to write Reka Dom for me in Russian character, as I had determined to master these few letters first and then proceed. I soon became familiar with them, and was not a little proud of the achievement. I made a large copy to fasten upon the nursery wall; I wrote it in all my books; and Fatima, who could not be induced to attack the fat grammar with me, became equally absorbed on her part in the effort to reduce the inscription to cross-stitch for the benefit of her sampler.

“I borrowed the fat grammar again, and, in spite of my father’s warnings that it was too difficult for me as yet, I hoped soon to be proficient in the language of the little Russians. But warnings from one’s elders are apt to come true, and after a few vain efforts I left the tough old volume in its corner and took to easier pastimes.

“I had always an inventive turn, and was, as a rule, the director-in-chief of our amusements. I know I was often very tiresome and tyrannical in the ensuing arrangements, and can only hope the trouble I took on these occasions on behalf of my brothers and sisters, served in their eyes to balance my defects. I remember one device of mine that proved particularly troublesome.

“When sham battles had ended in real quarrels, and following in the footsteps of the little Russians was becoming irksome–(especially to Fatima, whose predecessor–Peter–had been of a military turn, and had begun fortifications near the kitchen garden which she was incompetent to carry out) a new idea struck me. I announced that letters properly written and addressed to the little Russians, ‘Reka Dom, Russia,’ and posted in the old rhubarb-pot by the tool-house, would be duly answered. The replies to be found in a week’s time at the same office.