the disingenuousness--the cowardice--the 'vices of
slaves'!--and everyone you see ... all my brothers, ... constrained
_bodily_ into submission ... apparent submission at least ... by that
worst and most dishonouring of necessities, the necessity of _living_,
everyone of them all, except myself, being dependent in money-matters
on the inflexible will ... do you see? But what you do _not_ see, what
you _cannot_ see, is the deep tender affection behind and below all
those patriarchal ideas of governing grown up children 'in the way
they _must_ go!' and there never was (under the strata) a truer
affection in a father's heart ... no, nor a worthier heart in itself
... a heart loyaller and purer, and more compelling to gratitude and
reverence, than his, as I see it! The evil is in the system--and he
simply takes it to be his duty to rule, and to make happy according to
his own views of the propriety of happiness--he takes it to be his
duty to rule like the Kings of Christendom, by divine right. But he
loves us through and through it--and _I_, for one, love _him_! and
when, five years ago, I lost what I loved best in the world beyond
comparison and rivalship ... far better than himself as he knew ...
for everyone who knew _me_ could not choose but know what was my first
and chiefest affection ... when I lost _that_, ... I felt that he
stood the nearest to me on the closed grave ... or by the unclosing
sea ... I do not know which nor could ask. And I will tell you that
not only he has been kind and patient and forbearing to me through the
tedious trial of this illness (far more trying to standers by than you
have an idea of perhaps) but that he was generous and forbearing in
that hour of bitter trial, and never reproached me as he might have
done and as my own soul has not spared--never once said to me then or
since, that if it had not been for _me_, the crown of his house would
not have fallen. He _never did_ ... and he might have said it, and
more--and I could have answered nothing. Nothing, except that I had
paid my own price--and that the price I paid was greater than his
_loss_ ... his!! For see how it was; and how, 'not with my hand but
heart,' I was the cause or occasion of that misery--and though not
with the intention of my heart but with its weakness, yet the
_occasion_, any way!

They sent me down you know to Torquay--Dr. Chambers saying that I
could not live a winter in London. The worst--what people call the
wors