he not only wanted to watch over her son at every hour, but
to inspire him by her presence to keep true to his duty to Roland.

So she sat with them from early morning through much of the day,
breathing low, and not even allowing herself any needlework; and Eric
and Roland felt a peculiar of a calm mind, of deep insight, and wide
incitement in the presence of a third person, views. At first Roland
often looked up at her, but she always shook her head, to remind him
that he must give his whole mind to what he was about, and take no
notice of her. Eric was completely free from the first hour, when he
had caught himself giving such a turn to the lesson that his mother
might learn something new, and had met her gaze, which said,--That's
not the thing to be considered. He returned to his simple plan, without
regard to his mother's presence. She was pleased with the methodical
way in which Eric gave his instruction, and knew how to keep his
pupil's attention. She listened with pleasure, one day, when he said
that Indolence liked to say:--Nothing depends on me, a single
individual; but, a nation and humanity consist of individuals; a
scholar learns through single hours and days; a fruit ripens by single
sunbeams; everything is individual, but the collected individuals make
up the great whole. Eric had prepared himself, and read apposite
passages from Cicero, and from Xenophon's Memorabilia. Roland must feel
that he had the fellowship of the noblest spirits. But when they were
alone, his mother said,--"I think that in illustrating everything and
trying to give your pupil knowledge, you weaken and loosen his firm
hold on fundamental principles."

Eric felt a shock of disappointment; he had hoped that his mother would
express entire pleasure, and she was finding fault instead; but he
controlled himself, and she continued, smiling:--

"I cannot help laughing, because my two points of criticism are really
one and the same, looked at on two sides. The one view is this, that it
seems to me dangerous to give your pupil, as you do, just what he
desires: you follow the devious path of a young discursive mind, and
just there lies the danger of private instruction. I mean, in this way
it pampers the youthful mind by giving it only what it wishes for, not
what it ought to have. The discipline of a definite course of study
lies in the necessity of taking up and carrying forward what the
connected plan requires, and not what may suit the f