this kind of retiring-place of their own. How much of individuality and thoughtful habit was doubtless promoted by this plan! In "Home Education" [1] this opportunity of seclusion is insisted on as most essential to the growth of a reflective character.
During this time, as indeed always, Mrs. Taylor may be called the governess, and her husband the tutor, of the family. The latter, carefully reflecting on the difficulties of the times, resolved to give his daughters knowledge of an art by which they could gain their own living if he were taken from them. So, in 1797, when Anne was sixteen, the father brought the girls into his workshop (studio we should now call it) and taught them drawing and engraving. Art education for girls was then not thought of; but the father in this household was a man beyond his age in many things, and his gifted daughters amply recompensed by their progress the pains he took with them.
No apprentices could work more continuously than did Anne and Jane with their graving tools and etching needles. They had an hour for dinner, half an hour for tea, and when the evening hour of release came, and they were free to follow their own pursuits, the time seemed so short which they had for reading or composition, that they acquired, during all that time of year when daylight aided them, the valuable habit of early rising.
The faculty of verse was soon manifested by both
- ↑ By Isaac Taylor.
