Genre:

Obituary

Subjects:

Education, Reading, Utility, Disease, Piety, Biblical Authority

    Records that, as a girl, she 'cultivated a taste for reading and an ardent desire for mental improvement', reading widely and deeply, and acquiring 'a correct knowledge of useful science'. Engaging in 'night-reading', she suffered repeated colds as a result. (709) After a particularly dangerous illness, she experienced a religious conversion, after which time, 'though she had still an ardent thirst for reading, the Bible became, as she expressed it, her "favourite book"' (711–12).