Genre:

Short Fiction

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Physical Geography, Amusement, Education, Reading, Piety

    Nine-year-old Lucy Ridsdale goes to stay with her cousins, the children of Mr Burman, 'a surgeon in full practice' who 'consequently possessed very little leisure'. The Saturday before her return home, Mr Burman buys Lucy 'a very beautiful geographical game' which the children are loath to put away. Mr Burman urges them to do so, and to look out their 'books and pictures' for Sunday. To Lucy's question whether geography is wicked, he answers 'quite the reverse'. 'That, and every other study which shews us the extent and wonders of creation', he continues, 'may be very profitable, if engaged in aright'. (374) In response to Lucy's enquiry why it might not be studied on a Sunday he observes: 'we have better studies and sweeter pleasures on the Sabbath, than those which relate only to mental improvement. To inform the mind is good, but to benefit the soul is far more important; and that is the especial design of the Sabbath'. (375)