I am afraid that any true picture of our parents, especially of my
mother, will not do them justice in the eyes of the young people of
the present day, who are accustomed to a far more indulgent
government, and yet seem to me to know little of the loyal
veneration and submission with which we have, through life, regarded
our father and mother. It would have been reckoned disrespectful to
address them by these names; they were through life to us, in
private, papa and mamma, and we never presumed to take a liberty
with them. I doubt whether the petting, patronising equality of
terms on which children now live with their parents be equally
wholesome. There was then, however, strong love and self-
sacrificing devotion; but not manifested in softness or cultivation
of sympathy. Nothing was more dreaded than spoiling, which was
viewed as idle and unjustifiable self-gratification at the expense
of the objects thereof. There were an unlucky little pair in
Russell Square who were said to be 'spoilt children,' and who used
to be mentioned in our nursery with bated breath as a kind of
monsters or criminals. I believe our mother laboured under a
perpetual fear of spoiling Griff as the eldest, Clarence as the
beauty, me as the invalid, Emily (two years younger) as the only
girl, and Martyn as the after-thought, six years below our sister.
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