Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work

afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I

toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my

memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise

sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class;

in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and

drawing. I learned the first two tenses of the verb ETRE, and

sketched my first cottage (whose walls, by-the-bye, outrivalled in

slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That

night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the

Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk,

with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted

instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark;

all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees,

picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet

paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds

picking at ripe cherries, of wren's nests enclosing pearl-like eggs,

wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought,

the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a

certain little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown

me; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell

sweetly asleep.

Well has Solomon said--"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is,

than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."

I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for

Gateshead and its daily luxuries.




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