But the fine perception by which, formerly, she had drawn, painted, cut out, worked, and read, was obscured; and of all those accomplishments in which she had excelled, she was utterly deprived.
Of their former possession, however, there were ample proofs to demonstrate their value; her apartments were hung round with pictures of her own painting, beautifully designed and delightfully coloured; and ornaments of her own execution of striking elegance, in cuttings and variegated stained paper, embellished her chimney-piece; partly copied from antique studies, partly of fanciful invention; but all equally in the chaste style of true and refined good taste.
At the request of Mrs. Chapone, she instantly and unaffectedly brought forth a volume of her newly-invented Mosaic flower-work; an art of her own creation; consisting of staining paper of all possible colours, and then cutting it into strips, so finely and delicately, that when pasted on a dark ground, in accordance to the flower it was to produce, it had the appearance of a beautiful painting; except that it rose to the sight with a still richer effect: and this art Mrs. Delany had invented at seventy-five years of age![57]
It was so long, she said, after its suggestion, before she brought her work into any system, that in the first year she finished only two flowers: but in the second she accomplished sixteen; and in the third, one hundred and sixty. And after that, many more. They were all from nature, the fresh gathered, or still growing plant, being placed immediately before her for imitation. Her collection consisted of whatever was most choice and rare in flowers, plants, and weeds; or, more properly speaking, field flowers; for, as Thomson ingeniously says, it is the “dull incurious” alone who stigmatise these native offsprings of Flora by the degrading title of weeds.
Her plan had been to finish one thousand, for a complete herbal; but its progress had been stopped short, by the feebleness of her sight, when she was within only twenty of her original scheme.
She had always marked the spot whence she took, or received, her model, with the date of the year on the corner of each flower, in different coloured letters; “but the last year,” she meekly said, “when I found my eyes becoming weaker and weaker, and threatening to fail me before my plan could be completed, I cut out my initials, M. D., in white, for I fancied myself nearly working in my winding sheet!”
There was something in her smile at this melancholy speech that blended so much cheerfulness with resignation, as to render it, to the Memorialist, extremely affecting.
Mrs. Chapone inquired whether her eyes had been injured by any cold?
Instantly, at the question, recalling her spirits, “No, no!” she replied; “nothing has attacked them but my reigning malady, old age!—’Tis, however, only what we are all striving to obtain! And I, for one, have found it a very comfortable state. Yesterday, nevertheless, my peculiar infirmity was rather distressing to me. I received a note from young Mr. Montagu,[58] written in the name of his aunt,[59] that required an immediate answer. But how could I give it to what I could not even read? My good Astley[60] was, by great chance, gone abroad; and my housemaid can neither write nor read; and my man happened to be in disgrace, so I could not do him such a favour [smiling] as to be obliged to him! I resolved, therefore, to try, once more, to read myself; and I hunted out my old long-laid-by magnifier. But it would not do! it was all in vain!
I then ferretted out a larger glass; and with that, I had the great satisfaction to make out the first word,—but before I could get at the second, even the first became a blank! My eyes, however, have served me so long and so well, that I should be very ungrateful to quarrel with them. I then, luckily, recollected that my cook is a scholar! So I sent for her, and we made out the billet together—which, indeed, deserved a much better answer than I, or my cook either, scholar as she is, could bestow. But my dear niece will be with me ere long, and then I shall not be quite such a bankrupt to my correspondents.”