[5] I shall use this delicate coinage as a means of education in fineness of touch, and care of small things, and for practical lessons in arithmetic, to the [[288]]younger children, in whose hands it will principally be. It will never be wanted for alms; and for small purchases, as no wares will be offered at elevenpence three-farthings for a shilling, or ninepence four-fifths for a florin, there will be no unreasonable trouble. The children shall buy their own toys, and have none till they are able to do so. [↑]
[6] The beginning of the last verse of the prayer of Moses, [Psalm xc]. [↑]
[7] I never saw a rough diamond worth setting, until the Bishop of Natal gave me a sharply crystallized one from the African fields. Perhaps a star or two of cut ones may be permitted to the house-mistresses on great occasions. [↑]
[8] Yes, certainly. It points to teeth which shall have no meat to eat, but only the lead of coffins, and to tongues which shall have no water to drink, but only the burnt sulphur of hell. See, for example, succeeding article. [↑]
FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTER LIX.
Herne Hill, 3rd October, 1875.
The day before yesterday I went with a young English girl to see her nurse; who was sick of a lingering illness during which, with kindliest intent, and sufficient success, (as she told me,) in pleasing her, books had been chosen for her from the circulating library, by those of her pious friends whose age and experience qualified them for such task.
One of these volumes chancing to lie on the table near me, I looked into it, and found it to be ‘Stepping Heavenward;’—as far as I could make out, a somewhat long, but not unintelligent, sermon on the text of Wordsworth’s ‘Stepping Westward.’ In the five minutes during which I strayed between the leaves of it, and left the talk of my friend with her nurse to its own liberty, I found that the first chapters described the conversion of an idle and careless young lady of sixteen to a solemn view of her duties in life, which she thus expresses at the end of an advanced chapter: [[300]]“I am resolved never to read worldly books any more; and my music and drawing I have laid aside for ever.”[1]