to the way of salvation.
And do you recall your misery when I seized you one evening at your
birthday party (you were twenty), and dragged you about the room in a
waltz? That is, I waltzed, while you hobbled about like a lame calf,
much to the amusement of most of the company.
There were more who sympathized with my views of life than with yours.
You were such a wet blanket on our youthful spirits. Your ever-blazing
lake of brimstone did not even serve to warm the blanket.
I have been gratified to watch your growth the last ten years.
You have so changed your point of view, which indicates your real worth
and progressive good sense. And when you tell me that you have for years
regretted your lost opportunities for natural and moral pleasure, and
that you suffered beyond your power to describe in those old days in
conquering your desire to dance and play games, it brings the tears of
mingled rage and pity to my eyes. Rage at the old theology, and pity for
the poor children whose lives were shadowed by it.
And now what you tell me of your son and daughter proves another of my
theories true, and shows me how nature revenges its wrongs.
Children, my dear Wilton, especially the offspring of strong characters,
_inherit the suppressed tendencies of their parents_. They bring into
action the unexhausted impulses and the ungratified desires of those
parents.
The greatest singers are almost invariably the offspring of mothers or
fathers who _were music hungry_, and who were given no complete
gratification of this craving.
The poet, you will find, is the voice of an artistic-natured parent, who
was forced to be emotionally dumb.
And the proverbial clergyman's son is merely the natural result of the
same cause. He is charged with the tendencies and impulses which his
father crucified.
That your son loathes study, and hates church-going, and adores a brass
band and a circus, and runs away to the races, does not in the least
surprise me. Nor that your sixteen-year-old daughter grows hysterical at
the sound of dance music, and prefers a theatrical show in your village
hall to a Sunday-school picnic, and is mad to become an actress.
_They are your own wronged and starved emotions personified, and crying
out to you for justice._
The very best thing for you to do with the boy is to put him into a
gymnasium and a football team as soon as possible. Offer no opposition
when he wants to see a good horse-race. Urge h
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