The Secret of Success

ISBN-10: 1458934888
ISBN-13: 9781458934888
Series: The Secret of Success
Pages: 262
Language: English
Published: 2012-07
Publisher: Rarebooksclub.com
Author: William Henry Davenport Adams

Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 24 MISS MITFORD IN HER GIRLHOOD. It is related of Miss Mitford, the author of some ever-charming sketches of Our Village, that at three years old she was able to read; and her father, proud of his daughter's accomplishment, would often perch her on the breakfast-table to exhibit it to his admiring guests. These admired her all the more because she was a puny child, appearing younger than she was, and gifted with an affluence of curls, which made her look as if she were twin-sister to her own great doll. The ballad of The Children of the Wood was one of her early favourites; and from this she proceeded to make acquaintance with the other contents of Bishop Percy's admirable Reliques. They awakened and fostered her taste for poetry; and so strong was their hold upon her infant mind, that before she could read them herself, her father, who could deny her nothing, was coaxed into placing the volume in her nurse's hands, that they might be read to her whenever she wished. The breakfast room, writes Miss Mitford, where I first possessed myself of my beloved ballads, was a lofty and spacious apartment, literally lined with books. The windows opened on a large old- fashioned garden, full of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, honeysuckles, and pinks. Here we may remark, that to the end of her life Miss Mitford's two great passions were books and old- fashioned flowers. She was a wonderful economist of time. Forced by circumstances to become the stay and support of her parents, she contrived to find time for assiduous literary labour, for eager perusal of all new books of interest and importance, for visiting, entertaining, and corresponding with her friends, for superintending her garden and little household, for charitable ministrations in the village which will always be ...