Lewie; Or, The Bended TwigBradford, Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins)
General
Lewie; Or, The Bended Twig
Bradford, Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins)
Fiction
It was with no great difficulty that this undertaking was accomplished;
and in less than a fortnight from the time when Mr. Wharton found Miss
Edwards, caged like a wild beast in the County House at——, she was
placed at an asylum where every comfort surrounded her. It was not long
before she seemed quite at home amid these new scenes, and began to
interest herself in books and work; and though her mind never fully
regained its tone, she yet seemed tranquil and happy. But the scenes of
trial through which she had passed had done their work upon her
constitution, and she sank rapidly, until, in a little less than a year
from the time of her entering the asylum, Mr. Wharton was summoned to
her death-bed. He arrived but a short time before she breathed her
last, and had the satisfaction to find that she knew him, to hear from
her own lips the assurance that her faith in her Redeemer was firm and
unshaken, and to bear her last kind messages to all the dear ones at
Brook Farm. And then the poor sad heart was still—the mind was bright
and clear again—for the shattered strings were tuned anew in heaven.
In a quiet nook at Brook Farm, where the willow bends, and the brook
murmurs, is a spot marked out for a burying-place, and the first stone
planted there bears on it the name of “Rhoda Edwards.”
IX.
Emily’s Trials.
“And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang, even thou must fail to soothe?”—BYRON.
In the meantime the education of Master Lewie was going on as best it
might, and in a manner most agreeable to that young gentleman’s
inclinations. When he chose to do so, he studied, and then no child
could make more rapid advancement than he, but as he was brought up
without any habits of regular application, study soon became
distasteful to him, and at the first puzzling sentence he threw aside
his books in disgust, and started off for play. The only thing he
really loved, was music, and in his devotion to this delightful
accomplishment he was indefatigable, and his proficiency at that tender
age was remarkable.
But being now nine or ten years old, his mother, urged to this course
by some pretty strong hints from Mr. Wharton, began to determine upon
some systematic plan of education for him. And, acting upon Mr.
Wharton’s advice, she was so happy as to secure the services of Mr.
Malcolm, the young clergyman at the village, as a tutor for Lewie, upon
the condition on his part, that unlimited authority, in no case to be
interfered with, should be given to him in his government of the
hitherto untrained and petted child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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