--I do not say
the lady in question is one of such, for I do not know her; I only say I
have known such a one."
John replied that certainly the love of power was his mother's special
weakness. She was spoiled when a child, he had been told; had her every
wish regarded, her every whim respected. This ruinous treatment sprang,
he said, from the self-same ambition, in another form, on the part of
her mother--the longing, namely, to secure her child's supreme
affection--with the natural consequence that they came to hate one
another. His father and she had been married but fifteen months, when he
died of a fall, following the hounds. Within six months she was engaged,
but the engagement was broken off, and she went abroad, leaving him
behind her. She married lord Cairnedge in Venice, and returned to England
when John was nearly four, and seemed to have lost all memory of her. His
stepfather was good to him, but died when he was about eight. His mother
was very severe. Her object plainly was to plant her authority so in his
very nature, that he should never think of disputing her will.
"But," said John, "she killed my love, and so I grew able to cast off her
yoke."
"The world would fare worse, I fancy," remarked my uncle, "if violent
women bore patient children. The evil would become irremediable. The
children might not be ruined, but they would bring no discipline to the
mother!"
"Her servants," continued John, "obey her implicitly, except when they
are sure she will never know.
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