Born in the Wrong Century?

While poking around the Web looking for more information on the old Getty Villa (the Malibu facility, which houses my favorite parts of the Getty collection, will finally re-open in 2006 after a long and costly renovation), I stumbled upon the beautiful little sampler you see at left.

It's a piece made by Rebekah S. Munro in Rhode Island in the early 1790s, and this is what's sewn into it:

"With Sheba's queen ye american fair
To adorn your mind bend all your care
[How blest the maid] whom circling years improve
Her GOD the object of her warmest love
Whose useful hours successive as they glide
The Book the Needle and the Pen divide
Who sees her Parents Heart exult with joy
And the fond tear stand sparkling in their eye"

What also struck me was the description on the Met Museum site:

"This sampler is in a slightly later style associated with Miss Balch's school. The formal archway in Mary Munro's sampler has been replaced by a gently meandering border (1984.331.12). Both girls used the motto that encourages young women to adorn their minds. Rebekah's verse goes on to say that a young woman should divide her time between reading, sewing, and writing, an indication that by the end of the eighteenth century, some families considered intellectual pursuits as important as sewing."

My first thought was, "How much would I love to divide my time between reading, sewing, and writing?"

Sure, there was no indoor plumbing back then, no e-mail, no accessible Mexican food, and I'd probably have died in childbirth at the age of 25 with the delivery of my seventh or eighth kid, but still. Reading, sewing, writing. Pretty sweet deal.