He Was, In Fact, An Inveterate Hater, A Miser Even In Misanthropy, And
Hoarded Up A Grudge As He Did A Guinea.
Thus, though my mother was an
only sister, he had never forgiven her marriage with my father, against
whom he had a cold, still, immovable pique, which had lain at the
bottom of his heart, like a stone in a well, ever since they had been
school boys together.
My mother, however, considered me as the
intermediate being that was to bring every thing again into harmony,
for she looked upon me as a prodigy - God bless her. My heart overflows
whenever I recall her tenderness: she was the most excellent, the most
indulgent of mothers. I was her only child; it was a pity she had no
more, for she had fondness of heart enough to have spoiled a dozen!
I was sent, at an early age, to a public school, sorely against my
mother's wishes, but my father insisted that it was the only way to
make boys hardy. The school was kept by a conscientious prig of the
ancient system, who did his duty by the boys intrusted to his care;
that is to say, we were flogged soundly when we did not get our
lessons. We were put into classes and thus flogged on in droves along
the highways of knowledge, in the same manner as cattle are driven to
market, where those that are heavy in gait or short in leg have to
suffer for the superior alertness or longer limbs of their companions.
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