If he was fond of me I should be fond of him,
but I cannot like a son who, I am sure, dislikes me. He shrinks out of
my way whenever he sees me coming near him. He will not stay five
minutes in the same room with me if he can help it. He is deceitful. He
would not want to hide himself away so much if he were not deceitful.
That is a bad sign and one which makes me fear he will grow up
extravagant. I am sure he will grow up extravagant. I should have given
him more pocket-money if I had not known this--but what is the good of
giving him pocket-money? It is all gone directly. If he doesn't buy
something with it he gives it away to the first little boy or girl he
sees who takes his fancy. He forgets that it's my money he is giving
away. I give him money that he may have money and learn to know its
uses, not that he may go and squander it immediately. I wish he was not
so fond of music, it will interfere with his Latin and Greek. I will
stop it as much as I can. Why, when he was translating Livy the other
day he slipped out Handel's name in mistake for Hannibal's, and his
mother tells me he knows half the tunes in the 'Messiah' by heart.
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