His father's violent threats, or coarse sneers, would not
have been taken _au serieux_ by a stronger boy, but Theobald was not a
strong boy, and rightly or wrongly, gave his father credit for being
quite ready to carry his threats into execution. Opposition had never
got him anything he wanted yet, nor indeed had yielding, for the matter
of that, unless he happened to want exactly what his father wanted for
him. If he had ever entertained thoughts of resistance, he had none now,
and the power to oppose was so completely lost for want of exercise that
hardly did the wish remain; there was nothing left save dull acquiescence
as of an ass crouched between two burdens. He may have had an
ill-defined sense of ideals that were not his actuals; he might
occasionally dream of himself as a soldier or a sailor far away in
foreign lands, or even as a farmer's boy upon the wolds, but there was
not enough in him for there to be any chance of his turning his dreams
into realities, and he drifted on with his stream, which was a slow, and,
I am afraid, a muddy one.
I think the Church Catechism has a good deal to do with the unhappy
relations which commonly even now exist between parents and children.
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