It never entered his mind that any member of it might in
this or that think differently from himself. But both his wife and
Hester were able to think, and did think for themselves, as they were
bound in the truth of things to do; and there were considerable
divergements of the paths in which they walked from that he had trodden.
He had indeed always taken too much for granted, and ought to have used
more pains to have his notions understood by them, if he laid so much on
their intellectual sympathy. He supposed all the three read what he
wrote; and his wife and daughter did read the most of it; but what would
he think when he came to know that his son not only read next to nothing
of it, but read that little with a contempt not altogether
unconscious--for no other reason than that it was his father who wrote
it? Nor was the youth quite without justification--for was he not
himself a production of his father? But then he looked upon the latter
as one of altogether superior quality! It is indeed strange how vulgar
minds despise the things they have looked upon and their hands have
handled, just because they have looked upon them and their hands have
handled them; is there not in the fact a humiliating lesson, which yet
they are unable to read, of the degrading power of their own presence
upon themselves and their judgments? Whether a man is a hero to his
valet or the opposite, depends as much on the valet as on the man: The
bond, then, between the father and the son, was by no means so strong as
the father thought it.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73