None of the other girls had any special tastes. The laborious and
expensive education of their childhood did not lead to anything worth
the name of a pursuit, much less a hobby, with any one of them. Of the
happiness of learning, of the exciting interest of an intellectual
hobby, they knew nothing. With much pains and labour they had been
drilled in arts and sciences, in languages and "the usual branches of
an English education." But, apart from social duties and amusements,
the chief occupation of their lives was needlework. I have known many
people who never received proper instruction in music or drawing, who
yet, from what they picked up of either art by their own industry and
intelligence, nearly doubled the happiness of their daily lives. But
in vain had "the first masters" made my cousins glib in chromatic
passages, and dexterous with tricks of effects in colours and crayons.
They played duets after dinner, and Aunt Maria sometimes showed off
the water-colour copies of their school-room days, which, indeed, they
now and then recopied for bazaars; but for their own pleasure they
never touched a note or a pencil. Perhaps real enjoyment only comes
with what one has, to a great extent, taught oneself.
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