Everything a man is he can owe but to his mother;
everything he may be in future life has possibly come from her fond
intercession, her gentle admonitions. "Unhappy is the man for whom his
own mother has not made all other mothers venerable," says Richter. "The
future destiny of the child,"
SAYS NAPOLEON,
"is always the work of the mother," and it is certain that he had ample
reason in his own remarkable career for making this important admission.
He inherited from his mother all those attributes which made him great,
and owed his sudden downfall to none of her teachings. She was noted for
her sagacity and prudence, but possibly it required more than human
sagacity and prudence to balance the mighty impulses which moved
Napoleon Bonaparte. "A father may turn his back on his child," says
Washington Irving, "brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies,
husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands; but a mother's
love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of
the world's condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that
her child may turn from his evil ways, and repent; still
SHE REMEMBERS THE INFANT SMILES
that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful
shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can
never be brought to think him all unworthy.
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