In childhood every available
opportunity of instruction was made use of. According to the ideas of
the time, she was well educated, though not highly accomplished, and she
certainly enjoyed that important element of mental training, associating
at home with persons of cultivated intellect. It cannot be doubted that
her early years were bright and happy, living, as she did, with indulgent
parents, in a cheerful home, not without agreeable variety of society. To
these sources of enjoyment must be added the first stirrings of talent
within her, and the absorbing interest of original composition. It is
impossible to say at how early an age she began to write. There are copy
books extant containing tales some of which must have been composed while
she was a young girl, as they had amounted to a considerable number by
the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of a slight and
flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical, but the
nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a
dedication of mock solemnity to some one of her family.
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