She is an
irreconcilable enemy to idleness, and considers every state of life as
idleness, in which the hands are not employed, or some art acquired, by
which she thinks money may be got or saved.
In pursuance of this principle, she calls up her daughters at a certain
hour, and appoints them a task of needlework to be performed before
breakfast. They are confined in a garret, which has its window in the
roof, both because work is best done at a sky-light, and because
children are apt to lose time by looking about them.
They bring down their work to breakfast, and as they deserve are
commended or reproved; they are then sent up with a new task till
dinner; if no company is expected, their mother sits with them the whole
afternoon, to direct their operations, and to draw patterns, and is
sometimes denied to her nearest relations when she is engaged in
teaching them a new stitch.
By this continual exercise of their diligence, she has obtained a very
considerable number of laborious performances. We have twice as many
fire-skreens as chimneys, and three flourished quilts for every bed.
Half the rooms are adorned with a kind of _sutile pictures_, which
imitate tapestry.
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