IX.
MRS. OPIE.
Norwich has been called "The City of Gardens;" for behind the large houses belonging to professional men, and business men, which front the narrow irregular streets, there are sweet lawns and well-cared-for flower borders, with trees and shrubs planted so thickly round the walls, or the walls themselves so covered with the trailing tendrils of fresh creepers, that imagination might fancy the scene one of pure country loveliness.
The beautiful taper spire of the rather small, but very elegant Cathedral, appears above the verdure-covered walls, its stone notches resting softly in attractive clearness upon the cloudless blue sky; or, perhaps the battlements of the square, massive block of the Castle, rise quietly above the grave old buildings of the city, the slopes of the castle moat, gaily draped with innumerable lilacs in the spring, resting in drowsy dignity below.
Another feature of the fine old city of Norwich is the quaint churchyard, with blackish stone walls around and sometimes intersected diagonally with a narrow paved walk, or perhaps surrounded by a roughly-paved street, with posts to guard each entrance, and with the dignified name of "Church Alley."
In a house which stood in one of these churchyards—St. Clement's—a physician, named Dr. Alderson, lived rather more than a hundred years ago. He had only one child, who was born on the 12th of November, 1769. This little girl was christened Amelia, after her mother, who taught and trained her both wisely and well.
To this, probably, the success of Amelia Alderson, afterwards Mrs. Opie, as a writer, was mainly due, although the great care of the parent did not altogether enable the daughter to conquer all faults, for Sydney Smith once plainly told her that "Tenderness is your forte, and carelessness your fault."
Amelia was a bright, cheerful, golden-haired girl, with lively fancy and strong imaginative powers, decidedly talented and capable of high cultivation.
When a very tiny thing, she would lie quietly in bed to listen to the church bells which had awakened her, and, looking up to the sapphire sky at early dawn, she gazed and listened, as her mistaken ideas suggested that the chaste chime was the music of the angels hidden in the depths of the blue!