Connecticut western news., 1875-06-04
Death of Miss Susan Bonnet.

We, whose lives were intcrwoven more or less with this just ended, made but e grudging surrender of our friend to the great enemy. Miss Bonnet was the daugh- ter of the late Samuel Bonnet Esq. of Ca naan, and granddaughter of Judge Paine, who many years since was a distinguished lawyer of Duchess county, N. Y. He was @ man of strong mind and marked charac ter; an accomplished scholar in belles. lettres, Hebrew and the classics. The lit erary tastes SO marked in the granddaughter were partly her inheritance and partly the result of the elders fostering influence in her early youth. Besides her acquisitions of this kind, she was endowed with what it is not extravagant to call genius, as an educator. And most unfortunate was 1t for the young of this community that for tune placed her beyond the necessity of q lifelong pursuit of this vocation. or that tue care of her home became imperative. However, through period of some years she instructed at her house, or in the public school building. many and various pupils
 Her modes of teaching were plainly her own, and very honest work was done on both sides-hers con Gna0rs-our's also of ten, but often too, nolens golens Capacity in the pupils was to her an inspiration {; mediocrity something other. Nothing in it's way could exceed the spectacle of a class of the little ones (alwsys her favor ites) drawn up in front of her for recitation. Each little figure, earnest, eager, attentive. Her mind held theirs SO absolutely, they seemed like birds in the power of charm CT, preternaturslly intelligent. The exer- else ended, she would clasp her hands to- gether. her eye sparkling with merriment, and clasp each in a hearty, rollicking hug. Then followed a jolly bantering chat, be slowing upon herself some laughable and absurd sobriquet, while to them she would apply another, which had the effect to characterize, in an amusing way, some per sonal peculisrity of the child. One in par ticular l remember, was little Chestnut Bur- and was applied to little fellow whose hair used to be cut very short, and each particular hair on end. Even when the school was rellnQuished she yet never 1 ceased to look with yearning heart upon the children; and often has she taken little dullsrd who had long tried the hearts of patient teachers, and snatching a scrap | of newspaper, or whatever lay in her way, she would, without other text book, soon have given them valuable lesson in geog. raphy, grammar, reading or arithmetic, as the case might be, awakening the child to l courage and ambition till, at length, the little nope beamed forth bright intelli
 gence. So she was always ca rapport with her pets, and from store of bOoks and picture cards kept for tue purpose, she laid them a trail to her door.
 She was educsted-partially aL least-st the celebrated school of Miss Pierce at Lltchfield, and in these school girl days she is described by one who remembers, as most attratiYe, refined and slender girl, whose compositions. (often read in publicj acute in thought, elegant in diction, made much impression upon those eminent jurists of the Litchfield law sohool-the pride of our state in those days. All of us have noted the shy, girlish modesty which al- ways attended her, notwithstanding the positiveness of her character. She was hater Of pretension, 8 devoted, self sacri- ficing daughter and a charitable woman. Her life has been one of ceaseless activities and at the moment when late events gave promise of leisure, It seems as If she had seized it to die. And as on her funeral day she lay pillowed amid pale flowers, the waxen fingers idly clasping these sweet to- kens, there shown from face and brow such radiance of intellectually as seemed to suggest that realm of pure intellect-the native element of her soul. A. 0. O. W. Canaan, Ct., May 27th, 1875.