Personal Recollections | Page 4

cravings, one passion reigned supreme, and that acme of enjoyment to me was music. This also was met by indulgence as unlimited as its cravings; for not only did my father possess one of the finest voices in the world, and the very highest degree of scientific knowledge, taste, and skill in the management of it, but our house was seldom without an inmate in the person of his most intimate friend and brother clergyman, a son of the celebrated composer Mr. Linley, who was as highly gifted in instrumental as my father was in vocal music. The rich tones of his old harpsichord seem at this moment to fill my ear and swell my heart; while my father's deep, clear, mellow voice breaks in, with some noble recitative or elaborate air of Handel, Haydn, and the rest of a school that may be superseded, but never, never can be equalled by modern composers. Or the harpsichord was relinquished to another hand, and the breath of our friend came forth through the reed of his hautboy in strains of such overpowering melody, that I have hid my face on my mother's lap to weep the feelings that absolutely wrung my little heart with excess of enjoyment. This was not a snare; or, if it might have been made one, the Lord broke it in time, by taking away my hearing. I would not that it had been otherwise, for while a vain imagination was fostered by the habit I have before adverted to, this taste for music and its high gratification most certainly elevated the mind. I do firmly believe that it is a gift from God to man, to be prized, cherished, cultivated. I believe that the man whose bosom yields no response to the concord of sweet sounds, falls short of the standard to which man should aspire as an intellectual being; and though Satan does fearfully pervert this solace of the mind to most vile purposes, still I heartily agree with Martin Luther, that, in the abstract, "the devil hates music."
Before I had completed my sixth year, I came under the rod of discipline which was to fall so long and so perseveringly upon me ere I should "hear the rod and who had appointed it." Enthusiastic in every thing, and already passionately fond of reading, I had eagerly accepted the offer of a dear uncle, a young physician, to teach me French. I loved him, for he was gentle and kind, and very fond of me; and it was a great happiness to trip through the long winding street that separated us, to turn down by the old Bridewell, so celebrated as an architectural curiosity, being built of dark flint stones, exquisitely chiselled into the form of bricks, and which even then I could greatly admire, and to take my seat on my young uncle's knee, in the large hall of his house, where stood a very large and deep-toned organ, some sublime strain from which was to reward my diligence, if I repeated accurately the lesson he had appointed. Thus between love for my uncle, delight in his organ, and a natural inclination to acquire learning, I was stimulated to extraordinary efforts, and met the demand on my energies in a very unsafe way. I placed my French book under my pillow every night, and starting from repose at the earliest break of dawn, strained my sleepy eyes over the page, until, very suddenly, I became totally blind.
This was a grievous blow to my tender parents: the eclipse was so complete that I could not tell whether it was midnight or midnoon, so far as perception of light was concerned, and the case seemed hopeless. It was, however, among the "all things" that God causes to work together for good, while Satan eagerly seeks to use them for evil. It checked my inordinate desire for mere acquirements, which I believe to be a bad tendency, particularly in a female, while it threw me more upon my own resources, such as they were, and gave me a keen relish for the highly intellectual conversation that always prevailed in our home. My father delighted in the society of literary men; and he was himself of a turn so argumentative, so overflowing with rich conversation, so decided in his political views, so alive to passing events, so devotedly and so proudly the Englishman, that with such associates as he gathered about him at his own fireside, I don't see how the little blind girl, whose face was ever turned up towards the unseen speaker, and whose mind opened to every passing remark, could avoid becoming a thinker, a reasoner, a tory, and a patriot. Sometimes a tough disputant crossed our threshold; one of these was Dr. Parr, and