LEAVES
from
THE DIARY OF AN AGED SPINSTER.
The poet of The Elegy par excellence, hath written two lines, which run thus—
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
Now, I never can think of these lines but they remind me of the tender, delicate, living, breathing, and neglected flowers that bud, blossom, shed their leaves, and die, in cold unsunned obscurity—flowers that were formed to shed their fragrance around a man’s heart, and to charm his eye—but which, though wandering melancholy and alone in the wilderness where they grow, he passeth by with neglect, making a companion of his loneliness. But, to drop all metaphor—where will you find a flower more interesting than a spinster of threescore and ten, of sixty, of fifty, or of forty? They have, indeed, “wasted their sweetness on the desert air.” Some call them “old maids;” but it is a malicious appellation, unless it can be proved that they have refused to be wives. I would always take the part of a spinster; they are a peculiar people, far more “sinned against than sinning.” Every blockhead thinks himself at liberty to crack a joke upon them; and when he says something, that he conceives to be wondrous smart, about Miss Such-an-One and her cat or poodle dog, he conceives himself a marvellous clever fellow; yea, even those of her own sex who are below what is called a “certain age” (what that age is, I cannot tell), think themselves privileged to giggle at the expense of their elder sister. Now, though there may be a degree of peevishness (and it is not to be wondered at) amongst the sisterhood, yet with them you will find the most sensitive tenderness of heart, a delicacy that quivers, like the aspen leaf, at a breath, and a kindliness of soul that a mother might envy—or rather, for envy, shall I not write imitate? But ah! if their history were told, what a chronicle would it exhibit of blighted affections, withered hearts, secret tears, and midnight sighs!
The first spinster of whom I have a particular remembrance, as belonging to her caste, was Diana Darling. It is now six and twenty years since Diana paid the debt of nature, up to which period, and for a few years before, she rented a room in Chirnside. It was only a year or two before her death that I became acquainted with her; and I was then very young. But I never shall forget her kindness towards me. She treated me as though I had been her own child, or rather her grandchild, for she was then very little under seventy years of age. She had always an air of gentility about her; people called her “a betterish sort o’ body.” And, although Miss and Mistress are becoming general appellations now, twenty or thirty years ago, upon the Borders, those titles were only applied to particular persons or on particular occasions; and whether their more frequent use now is to be attributed to the schoolmaster being abroad or the dancing-master being abroad, I cannot tell, but Diana Darling, although acknowledged to be a “betterish sort o’ body,” never was spoken of by any other term but “auld Diana,” or “auld Die.” Well do I remember her flowing chintz gown, with short sleeves, her snow-white apron, her whiter cap, and old kid gloves, reaching to her elbows; and as well do I remember how she took one of the common blue cakes which washer-women use, and tying it up in a piece of woollen cloth, dipped it in water, and daubed it round and round the walls of her room, to give them the appearance of being papered. I have often heard of and seen stenciling since; but, rude as the attempt was, I am almost persuaded that Diana was the first who put it in practice. To keep up gentility putteth people to strange shifts, and often to ridiculous ones—and to both of these extremities she was driven. But I have hinted that she was a kind-hearted creature; and, above all, do I remember her for the fine old ballads which she sang to me. But there was one that was an especial favourite with her, and a verse of which, if I remember correctly, ran thus—
“Fie, Lizzy Lindsay!
Sae lang in the mornins ye lie,
Mair fit ye was helping yer minny
To milk a’ the ewes and the kye.”