Meantime her mind
was purely receptive. She had no ambition to propound a theory,
or to write her own name on any book, or plant, or opinion.
Her delight in books was not tainted by any wish to shine,
or any appetite for praise or influence. She seldom and unwillingly
used a pen, and only for necessity or affection.
"But this wide and successful study was, during all the hours
of middle life, only the work of hours stolen from sleep,
or was combined with some household task which occupied the
hands and left the eyes free. She was faithful to all the
duties of wife and mother in a well-ordered and eminently
hospitable household, wherein she was dearly loved, and where
'her heart
Life's lowliest duties on itself did lay.'
"She was not only the most amiable, but the tenderest of
women, wholly sincere, thoughtful for others, and, though
careless of appearances, submitting with docility to the
better arrangements with which her children or friends insisted
on supplementing her own negligence of dress; for her own
part indulging her children in the greatest freedom, assured
that their own reflection, as it opened, would supply all
needed checks.
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