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Untitled Article
u and I like to talk to you now , because you look more kind than you did . " " To be sure , " said his father , " because I love you better . " 'p . 8 . We would ask of the common sense of every parent , which is the strongest reformatory power , the menaces of roused indignation
or the tears of grieved affection ? Look unkindly on a poor , inexperienced child , that , hunting after good , has sought it in the wrong direction . —O , it is a wretched plan to adopt ! Older children than Adam Stock are often driven by this species of discipline into a dreary and dangerous condition . A little timidity , and consequent suppression of the external indications of affection ; a little originality , and consequently some eccentricity ; a little
pertinacity , the result of having intellectual and moral perceptions of its own ; and you have the materials of a youthful character , which this government , by loving and not loving , is almost sure to put under proscription , and make the victim of family persecution . The brand is soon fixed . Who smiles upon , or fondles the perverse one ? Let her , ( for this calamity falls most heavily , if not most frequently , upon a girl , ) let her speak ; the reply is in a
hard , cold tone : let her smile ; there is no responsive smile . She is intractable , and papa and mamma don ' t love her ; and brothers and sisters follow in their wake . But she may hear the kind tones that greet others . She may see the fond looks that meet their looks . Can any thing be more unwholesome for her heart than the ceaseless contrast ? The frost incrusts her countenance , driving all feeling inwards , to concentrate in her heart ' s core ; and it
is no merit of the system should it not become concentrated venom . The family opinion naturally spreads amongst connexions and associates . The victim breathes like a consumptive patient in a freezing atmosphere . The internal sensitiveness and the external air become keener together . Now suppose her transplanted before the corrosion has eaten too deeply into her moral vitality . Suppose her domesticated with those who * live in love / and who are allowed to receive her without prejudice . In no long
time there will be such a change as , were it on face and form , ( indeed it is there too , and marvellously does it beautify them , ) would render recognition impossible . Frankness displaces the supprcssive manner which had been deemed so sinister or haughty . She fears not now to send forth her kindly emotions , knowing that they will no longer be driven back upon herself , like the routed outposts of a hostile army . Mind and heart , have expanded in the sunshine . Can this be the dull and selfish member of that
kind and clover family ? Indeed it is ; she who used to be so often punished by * nobody ' s loving her . ' One of the noblest women we over knew was trained in this way ; and by a father , too , who was both wise and good , as the world goes . She escaped utter desolation by early self-dependence . But the hard external incrustation was never thawed or broken . Few ever knew what
Untitled Article
148 Adam the Gardener .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 148, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/64/
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