Chapter 18
section 18 of a cup of sweets that can never cloy or delightful tales for good children this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Little Miss Clumsy a cup of sweets by Elizabeth Thample and Elizabeth Sandham Jemima
Mrs. Franklin, a widow lady of very considerable fortune, inhabited an elegant house on Richmond Hill kept a number of servants and had the most splendid equipage in the whole neighborhood she had an only daughter to whom she was fondly indulgent and on whom she determined to bestow the best education that could possibly be procured for her, let the expanse be what it would Jemima was a very amiable child and if she had been so fortunate as to have been placed under the care
of anyone a little more disposed than her mother was to combat her fancies and want of resolution she would not have had to regret the immense sums squandered upon her to no kind of purpose nor to wish she could recall, as she often vainly did, the time she had trifled away in doing nothing it must appear very extraordinary that this should have been the unhappy fate of a little girl who wished so much to profit by the instruction procured for her and had the greatest desire to be an accomplished woman
but Jemima wished to be accomplished without having the trouble of making herself so and possessed neither the resolution nor perseverance so absolutely necessary to the attainment of the perfection she aimed at she began everything with eagerness and alacrity but the most trifling difficulty which came in her way put a total stop to her progress
and she immediately persuaded herself that it was not possible she ever should be able to surmount them she had from her infancy been extremely fond of drawing and desiring to be instructed in that agreeable art one of the first masters was procured for her she had in a very short time succeeded in copying, with tolerable correctness, the first things he gave her to do and the greatest hopes were entertained of her making a great proficiency in what she appeared to prefer to every other amusement
the master now gave her some other drawings to copy, which required a little more attention and study and she began to find difficulties in her way, which she had not foreseen she tried them twice, they were pretty well, but not perfect a few faults still remained, which her master pointed out to her Jemima concluded she never should do them better
and as he insisted that she could not proceed till she had made herself mistress of the trifles he objected to she determined to give up all thoughts of drawing figure and apply herself entirely to landscape she was delighted with this new employment her master had the sweetest drawings of trees, cottages and rivers that had ever been seen she should never be tired of copying such pretty things
and she was sure she should not meet with half the difficulties which were to be found in drawing figure she made outlines of several trees and had she but been possessed of perseverance enough to have perfected herself in that part before she attempted to go farther all would have been easy and pleasant but Jemima knew nothing of perseverance or patience
and insisted on having a finished landscape to do directly and the master, to show her how incapable she was of executing such a thing, indulged her in her fancy but when he endeavored to explain to her the nature of perspective, light and shadow and several other rules necessary for her to understand Jemima dropped the pencil from her fingers
she had not perfectly comprehended his meaning and wanted resolution to question him and endeavour to make it clearer and once more concluded she never should be able to make anything of it and that it would be much more prudent to turn to some other pursuit accordingly the drawing master was dismissed
and all the money her mama had paid him for his attendance for quantities of paper, pencils, chalk and, which was of much more consequence and which no sum could recall, the loss of her own precious time were thrown away to no purpose but Jemima did not mean to stop here
she should do very well without drawing, she said and she would give all the time she had intended to employ that way entirely to music and had no doubt but that by the time she was 16 she should be quite a proficient was very sorry she had so long neglected her piano forte and requested of her master that he would bring her some better music
than the simple easy lessons she had been playing assuring him that she intended to apply very seriously but alas, she had no better success in this than in her drawing difficulties obtruded themselves whatever she turned to and when she quitted the piano for the harp
and from the harp returned to the piano she found herself just in the same predicament the music was given up for the French and Italian languages geography and botany all of which ended in the same way nothing was to be learned without a sufficient stock of perseverance and resolution
to surmount the obstacles which lay in the way and as the smallest was quite enough to stop Jemima's progress it is not to be wondered at as she was allowed to have her own way in everything that as the age of 16 though what would have been a comfortable independence to many
had been spent upon her education that she knew no one thing in the world at 20 she had but too much cause to repent of her folly her mother by lawsuits and other unforeseen events lost the greater part of her fortune and was obliged to retire into a remote part of the country
and in that lonely place what a comfort and amusement would she have found in music or drawing had she but endeavored when she had so good an opportunity to perfect herself in either but she had nothing to do
no means of employing herself agreeably but spent her time in loitering about from one window to another tired of herself and tiring everybody who saw her end of section 18
