d
founds on an imaginary character and looks. Thus it is foredoomed to
disappointment; and because the parent either looks for too much, or at
least for something inappropriate, at his offspring's hands, it is too
often insufficiently repaid. The natural bond, besides, is stronger from
parent to child than from child to parent; and it is the side which
confers benefits, not which receives them, that thinks most of a
relation. (2) What do we owe our parents? No man can _owe_ love; none
can _owe_ obedience. We owe, I think, chiefly pity; for we are the
pledge of their dear and joyful union, we have been the solicitude of
their days and the anxiety of their nights, we have made them, though by
no will of ours, to carry the burthen of our sins, sorrows, and physical
infirmities; and too many of us grow up at length to disappoint the
purpose of their lives and requite their care and piety with cruel
pangs. (3) _Mater Dolorosa_. It is the particular cross of parents that
when the child grows up and becomes himself instead of that pale ideal
they had preconceived, they must accuse their own harshness or
indulgence for this natural result. They have all been like the duck and
hatched swan's eggs, or the other way about; yet they tell themselves
with miserable penitence that the blame lies with them; and had they sat
more closely, the swan would have been a duck, and home-keeping, in
spite of all. (4) A good son, who can fulfil what is expected of him,
has done his work in life. He has to redeem the sins of many, and
restore the world's confidence in children.

III. DIALOGUE ON CHARACTER AND DESTINY BETWEEN TWO PUPPETS.--At the end
of Chapter XXXIII. Count Spada and the General of the Jesuits were left
alone in the pavilion, while the course of the story was turned upon the
doings of the virtuous hero. Profiting by this moment of privacy, the
Jesuit turned with a very warning countenance upon the peer.

"Have a care, my lord," said he, raising a finger. "You are already no
favourite with the author; and for my part, I begin to perceive from a
thousand evidences that the narrative is drawing near a close. Yet a
chapter or two at most, and you will be overtaken by some sudden and
appalling judgment."

"I despise your womanish presentiments," replied Spada, "and count
firmly upon another volume; I see a variety of reasons why my life
should be prolonged to within a few pages of the end; indeed, I permit
myself to expect resurr