r by word or manner, in the public
rooms of the house. My mother merely said, in a quiet tone: "My child,
you are either tired or sick; in either case, it would be better to go
to your own room and lie down until you are quite restored." The
result of this simple rule was an almost uniform cheerfulness. I have
lived in many homes, in many parts of the world, but I have never seen
one which equaled my mother's in this respect. I do not remember a
single command issued by my mother to her older children; but I can
well remember her saying: "I think you had better do so and so"; and I
recollect distinctly that when we obstinately followed our own
unreasoning will, as we were often inclined to do, we were invariably
taught a bitter but wholesome lesson. She believed these lessons to be
much more effectual for good than any arbitrary prohibition on her
part would have been; she reserved such prohibition for the cases
where the consequences were not confined to ourselves, or were of too
serious a nature.

The one mistake made by my mother was in the physical management of
her children. Like many mothers whose bodies and minds are kept at the
highest tension, she failed to give vital strength to her children.
The most promising of these died in early childhood, "by the will of
God," as we say in our blindness. One of them especially, the "little
king," as he was called, being a magnificent child, both in mental and
moral development. Of those who came to maturity, one died at the age
of twenty-seven, one has been an invalid for years, one has fair
health, and one only rejoices in a vigorous physique. This boy was
born in my grandmother's house, near the sea, where my mother had
spent, as she expressed it, "the laziest year of her whole life."
These children have all had a keen love of study, an energy which
carried them far beyond their strength, and she failed sufficiently to
curb them. But in other respects, our mother has done to the
uttermost. Her children had strong propensities both for good and ill.
She has, so far as is possible, strengthened the virtues and repressed
the faults of every child given into her keeping.

"The sun shines," is a sentence simple and short, but how infinite is
its meaning; myriads of unfolding blossoms flash it back in vivid
coloring; myriads of stalwart trees whisper it; myriads of breathing
things revel in it; myriads of men thank God for it. So is it with the
influence of a good mother.