She must have
been exceedingly handsome when she was young, and was still comely when
we first remembered her; she was also highly accomplished, but she felt
my father's loss of fortune more keenly than my father himself, and it
preyed upon her mind, though rather for our sake than for her own. Had
we not known my father we should have loved her better than any one in
the world, but affection goes by comparison, and my father spoiled us for
any one but himself; indeed, in after life, I remember my mother's
telling me, with many tears, how jealous she had often been of the love
we bore him, and how mean she had thought it of him to entrust all
scolding or repression to her, so that he might have more than his due
share of our affection. Not that I believe my father did this
consciously; still, he so greatly hated scolding that I dare say we might
often have got off scot-free when we really deserved reproof had not my
mother undertaken the _onus_ of scolding us herself. We therefore
naturally feared her more than my father, and fearing more we loved less.
For as love casteth out fear, so fear love.
This must have been hard to bear, and my mother scarcely knew the way to
bear it. She tried to upbraid us, in little ways, into loving her as
much as my father; the more she tried this, the less we could succeed in
doing it; and so on and so on in a fashion which need not be detailed.
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