work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context 7822,"",ECCO-TCP,2014-03-02 20:27:51 UTC,"Having lately turned my Thoughts upon the Consideration of the Behaviour of Parents to Children in the great Affair of Marriage, I took much Delight in turning over a Bundle of Letters which a Gentleman's Steward in the Country had sent me some Time ago. This Parcel is a Collection of Letters written by the Children of the Family (to which he belongs) to their Father, and contain all the little Passages of their Lives, and the new Idea's they received as their Years advanced. There is in them an Account of their Diversions as well as their Exercises; and what I thought very remarkable, is, That Two Sons of the Family, who now make considerable Figures in the World, gave Omens of that Sort of Character which they now bear, in the first Rudiments of Thought which they show in their Letters. Were one to point out a Method of Education, one could not, methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the Children get an Habit of communicating their Thoughts and Inclinations to their best Friend with so much Freedom, that he can form Schemes for their future Life and Conduct from an Observation of their Tempers, and by that Means be early enough in chusing their Way of Life, to make them forward in some Art or Science at an Age when others have not determined what Profession to follow. As to the Persons concerned in this Packet I am speaking of, they have given great Proofs of the Force of this Conduct of their Father in the Effect it has had upon their Lives and Manners. The elder, who is a Scholar, showed from his Infancy a Propensity to polite Studies, and has made a suitable Progress in Literature; but his Learning is so well woven into his Mind, that from the Impressions of it, he seems rather to have contracted an Habit of Life, than Manner of Discourse. To his Books he seems to owe a good Oeconomy in his Affairs, and a Complacency in his Manners, though in others that Way of Education has commonly a quite different Effect. The Epistles of the other Son are full of Accounts of what he thought most remarkable in his Reading. He sends his Father for News the last noble Story he had read. I observe, he is particularly touched with the Conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own Death, because the Oracle had said, If he were not killed, the Enemy should prevail over his Country. Many other Incidents in his little Letters give Omens of a Soul capable of generous Undertakings; and what makes it the more particular, is, That this Gentleman had, in the present War, the Honour and Happiness of doing an Action for which only it was worth coming into the World. Their Father is the most intimate Friend they have, and they always consult him rather than any other, when any Error has happened in their Conduct through Youth and Inadvertency. The Behaviour of this Gentleman to his Sons, has made his Life pass away with the Pleasures of a second Youth; for as the Vexations which Men receive from their Children hasten the Approach of Age, and double the Force of Years; so the Comforts which they reap from them, are Balm to all other Sorrows, and disappoint the Injuries of Time. Parents of Children repeat their Lives in their Offspring, and their Concern for them is so near, that they feel all their Sufferings and Enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own proper Persons. But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common Race of 'Squires in this Kingdom use their Sons as Persons that are waiting only for their Funerals, and Spies upon their Health and Happiness; as indeed they are by their own making them such. In Cases where a Man takes the Liberty after this Manner to reprehend others, it is commonly said, Let him look at Home. I am sorry to own it; but there is one Branch of the House of the Bickerstaffs, who have been as erroneous in their Conduct this Way as any other Family whatsoever. The Head of this Branch is now in Town, and has brought up with him his Son and Daughter (who are all the Children he has) in order to be put some Way into the World, and see Fashions. They are both very ill-bred Cubs, and having lived together from their Infancy without Knowledge of the Distinctions and Decencies that are proper to be paid to each other's Sex, they squabble like two Brothers. The Father is one of those who knows no better than that all Pleasure is Debauchery, and imagines, when he sees a Man become his Estate, that he will certainly spend it. This Branch are a People who never had among them one Man eminent either for Good or Ill; however, have all along kept their Heads just above Water, not by a prudent and regular Oeconomy, but by Expedients in the Matches they have made into their House. When one of the Family has, in the Pursuit of Foxes, and in the Entertainment of Clowns, ran out the Third Part of the Value of his Estate, such a Spendthrist has dressed up his eldest Son, and married what they call a Good Fortune, who has supported the Father as a Tyrant over them, during his Life, in the same House or Neighbourhood. The Son in Succession has just taken the same Method to keep up his Dignity, till the Mortgages he has eat and drank himself into, have reduced him to the Necessity of sacrificing his Son also, in Imitation of his Progenitor. This had been for many Generations the whole that had happened in the Family of Sam. Bickerstaff, till the Time of my present Cousin Samuel, the Father of the young People we have just now spoken of.
(III, pp. 365-8; cf. III, pp. 24-6 in Bond ed.)",,23431,"","""The elder, who is a Scholar, showed from his Infancy a Propensity to polite Studies, and has made a suitable Progress in Literature; but his Learning is so well woven into his Mind, that from the Impressions of it, he seems rather to have contracted an Habit of Life, than Manner of Discourse.""","",2014-03-02 20:27:51 UTC,""