The work consists of about forty figures in all, not counting Cupids, and
is divided into four main divisions. First, there is the large public
sitting-room or drawing-room of the College, where the elder young ladies
are engaged in various elegant employments. Three, at a table to the
left, are making a mitre for the Bishop, as may be seen from the model on
the table. Some are merely spinning or about to spin. One young lady,
sitting rather apart from the others, is doing an elaborate piece of
needlework at a tambour-frame near the window; others are making lace or
slippers, probably for the new curate; another is struggling with a
letter, or perhaps a theme, which seems to be giving her a good deal of
trouble, but which, when done, will, I am sure, be beautiful. One dear
little girl is simply reading "Paul and Virginia" underneath the window,
and is so concealed that I hardly think she can be seen from the outside
at all, though from inside she is delightful; it was with great regret
that I could not get her into any photograph. One most amiable young
woman has got a child's head on her lap, the child having played itself
to sleep. All are industriously and agreeably employed in some way or
other; all are plump; all are nice looking; there is not one Becky Sharp
in the whole school; on the contrary, as in "Pious Orgies," all is
pious--or sub-pious--and all, if not great, is at least eminently
respectable. One feels that St. Joachim and St. Anne could not have
chosen a school more judiciously, and that if one had daughter oneself
this is exactly where one would wish to place her. If there is a fault
of any kind in the arrangements, it is that they do not keep cats enough.
The place is overrun with mice, though what these can find to eat I know
not. It occurs to me also that the young ladies might be kept a little
more free of spiders' webs; but in all these chapels, bats, mice and
spiders are troublesome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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