Which was distressing enough, but not more so than being told on a similar occasion, and, I think, for similar reasons, that I was “not like any human young lady,” and again, she has seriously, even with agony, informed me that I was “the Disgrace of Castle Townshend!”
It was a sounding title, with something historic and splendid about it.
“The Butcher of Anjou!” “The Curse of Cromwell!” occur to me as parallel instances.
It was my privilege—sometimes, I think, my misfortune—to have succeeded my mother as the unofficial player of the organ in Castlehaven Church, and her criticisms of the music, and specially of the choir, were as unfailing as unsparing.
“They sang like infuriated pea-hens! Never have I heard such a collection of screech-cats! You should have drowned them with the great diapason!”
Not long ago, among some of her papers, I found a home-made copybook, of blue foolscap paper, with lines very irregularly ruled on it, and, on the lines, still more irregular phalanxes of “pothooks and hangers.” Further investigation discovered my own name, and a date that placed me at something under six years old; and at the foot of each page was my mother’s careful and considered judgment upon my efforts. “Middling,” “Careless,” “Bobbish,” “Naughty,” “Abominable,” and then a black day, when it was written, plain for all men to see, that I was not only abominable, but also naughty.
“Naughty and Abominable,” there it stands, and shows not only my early criminality, but my mother’s enchanting sincerity. What young mamma, of five or six and twenty, is there to-day who would thus faithfully allot praise or blame to her young. I feel safe in saying that the naughtier and more abominable the copy, the more inevitably would it be described as either killing or sweet.
In reference to this special page, I may add that, although I regard myself as a reliable opinion in calligraphy, I am unable to detect any perceptible difference between the pothooks and hangers of the occasion when I was bobbish, or those of that day of wrath when I was both naughty and abominable.
Amongst other episodes I cherish an unforgettable picture of my mother having her fortune told by her hand. (A criminal act, as we have recently learned, and one that under our enlightened laws might have involved heavy penalties.)
The Sibyl was a little lady endowed with an unusual share of that special variety of psychic faculty that makes the cheiromant, and also with a gift, almost rarer, of genuine enthusiasm for the good qualities of others, an innocent and whole-souled creator and worshipper of heroes, if ever there were one. To her did my mother confide her hand, her pretty hand, with the shell pink palm, and the blush on the Mount of Venus, that she had inherited from her mother, the Chief’s daughter.