The straightener's carriage was rarely seen at the door of those
houses. I saw two or three such cases during the time that I remained in
the country, and cannot express the pleasure which I derived from a sight
suggestive of so much goodness and wisdom and forbearance, so richly
rewarded; yet I firmly believe that the same thing would happen in nine
families out of ten if the parents were merely to remember how they felt
when they were young, and actually to behave towards their children as
they would have had their own parents behave towards themselves. But
this, which would appear to be so simple and obvious, seems also to be a
thing which not one in a hundred thousand is able to put in practice. It
is only the very great and good who have any living faith in the simplest
axioms; and there are few who are so holy as to feel that 19 and 13 make
32 as certainly as 2 and 2 make 4.
I am quite sure that if this narrative should ever fall into Erewhonian
hands, it will be said that what I have written about the relations
between parents and children being seldom satisfactory is an infamous
perversion of facts, and that in truth there are few young people who do
not feel happier in the society of their nearest relations {4} than in
any other.
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