een. Never was a more discontented, disagreeing,
troublesome family. The gratification of one want instantly creates a
new one. And it is only when they are quite worn out with having done
nothing, that they take refuge in their books, as less wearisome than
idleness."

Sir John, turning to Lady Belfield, said in a very tender tone, "My dear
Caroline, this story, in its principal feature, does not apply to us. We
concur completely, it is true, but I fear we concur by being both
wrong: we both err by excessive indulgence. As to the case in point,
while children are young, they may perhaps lean to the parent that
spoils them, but I have never yet seen an instance of young persons,
where the parents differed, who did not afterward discover a much
stronger affection for the one who had reasonably restrained them, than
for the other, whose blind indulgence had at once diminished her
importance and their own reverence."

I observed to Mr. Stanley, that as he had so noble a library, and wished
to inspire his children with the love of literature, I was surprised to
see their apartment so slenderly provided with books.

"This is the age of excess in every thing," replied he; "nothing is a
gratification of which the want has not been previously felt. The wishes
of children are all so anticipated, that they never experience the
pleasure excited by wanting and waiting. Of their initiatory books they
_must_ have a pretty copious supply. But as to books of entertainment or
instruction of a higher kind, I never allow them to possess one of their
own, till they have attentively read and improved by it; this gives them
a kind of title to it; and that desire of property, so natural to human
creatures, I think stimulates them in dispatching books which are in
themselves a little dry. Expectation with them, as with men, quickens
desire, while possession deadens it."

By this time the children had exhausted all the refreshments set before
them, and had retreated to a little further distance, where, without
disturbing us, they freely enjoyed their innocent gambols: playing,
singing, laughing, dancing, reciting verses, trying which could puzzle
the other in the names of plants, of which they pulled single leaves to
increase the difficulty, all succeeded each other. Lady Belfield looking
consciously at me, said, "These are the creatures whom I foolishly
suspected of being made miserable by restraint, and gloomy through want
of indulgence."