Perhaps if he had felt his bondage very acutely he would not have put up
with it, but he was constitutionally timid, and the strong hand of his
father knitted him into the closest outward harmony with his brother and
sisters.
The boys were of use to their father in one respect. I mean that he
played them off against each other. He kept them but poorly supplied
with pocket money, and to Theobald would urge that the claims of his
elder brother were naturally paramount, while he insisted to John upon
the fact that he had a numerous family, and would affirm solemnly that
his expenses were so heavy that at his death there would be very little
to divide. He did not care whether they compared notes or no, provided
they did not do so in his presence. Theobald did not complain even
behind his father's back. I knew him as intimately as anyone was likely
to know him as a child, at school, and again at Cambridge, but he very
rarely mentioned his father's name even while his father was alive, and
never once in my hearing afterwards. At school he was not actively
disliked as his brother was, but he was too dull and deficient in animal
spirits to be popular.
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