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542 PRÆTERITA-III
latter time of life, the deep admiration I still feel for Richardson.1 The follies of modern novel writing render it impossible for young people to understand the perfection of the human nature in his conception, and delicacy of finish in his dialogue, rendering all his greater scenes unsurpassable in their own manner of art. They belong to a time of the English language in which it could express with precision the most delicate phases of sentiment, necessarily now lost under American, Cockney, or scholastic slang.)
67. Joanie herself had real faculty and genius in all rightly girlish directions. She had an extremely sweet voice, whether in reading or singing; inventive wit, which was softly satirical, but never malicious; and quite a peculiar, and perfect, sense of clownish humour, which never for an instant diminished her refinement, but enabled her to sing either humorous Scotch, or the brightest Christy Minstrel carols, with a grace and animation which, within their gentle limits, could not be surpassed. She had a good natural faculty for drawing also, not inventive, but realistic; so that she answered my first lessons with serviceable care and patience; and was soon able to draw and paint flowers which were a great deal liker the flowers themselves than my own elaborate studies;-no one said of them, “What wonderful drawing!” but everybody said, “How like a violet, or a buttercup!” At that point, however, she stayed, and yet stays, to my sorrow, never having advanced into landscape drawing.
But very soon, also, she was able to help me in arranging my crystals; and the day divided itself between my mother’s room, the mineral room, the garden, and the drawing-room, with busy pleasures for every hour.
68. Then, in my favourite readings, the deep interest which, in his period of entirely central power, Scott had taken in the scenery of the Solway, rendered everything that Joanie could tell me of her native bay and its hills,
1 [“At this latter time of life”; that is, as well as in the early years, as recorded in ii. § 70 (above, p. 308).]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
