They will not come when carelessly
expected and demanded as a matter of course. The heart will be free.
It imperiously resents bonds and orders. The love of parent and child
is certainly even more a delight than it is a duty. They should be
friends, not so much because they are commanded to be such, but more
because they are mutually worthy, and because their peace of mind,
their contentment of heart, their improvement and happiness, depend
on their being such. What privilege can be imagined superior in
purity of joy and profit, to that of a young man who has for his
friend a wise and holy mother, whom he loves with enthusiasm and
confides in with an absolute devotion?

And if there be a human tear
From passion's dross refined and clear,
A tear so limpid and so meek
It would not stain an angel's cheek,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head.

FRIENDSHIPS OF MOTHERS AND SONS.

CORNELIA, daughter of Scipio Africanus, and wife of Tiberius
Gracchus, was left a widow, with a large family of young children.
She refused all subsequent offers of marriage, even when Ptolemy of
Egypt wished to share his throne with her. Her two sons, Tiberius and
Caius, the tribunes who achieved such greatness and fame, owed every
thing to her judicious training, to her wise and unwearied pains in
educating them, guarding them, and inspiring them to high deeds. She
was almost idolized by the Roman people, and occupied, indeed, the
proudest position of any woman in the history of her country. Her two
sons venerated, and invariably took counsel with their mother.

It is evident that their inner lives were shared with her. One of
them was known to have dropped, at her request, a law which he meant
to urge through the Senate. Cicero says that Catulus pronounced a
public panegyric on his mother, Popilia, the first time such a thing
was done in Rome. In a less formal manner, Caius Gracchus often
publicly spoke the praises of his mother, Cornelia. When her sons
were murdered, she bore the cruel affliction with imposing
magnanimity. Departing from Rome, she took up her abode at Misenum,
where, in the exercise of a queenly hospitality, she lived,
surrounded by illustrious men of letters, as well as by others of the
highest rank and distinction. Universally honored and respected, she
reached a good old age, and finally received at the hands of the
Roman people a statue inscribed, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.
Notwiths