within a few years. The
value of money being then about three and a half times as great as now,
this modest income was still a fair competence for one of his frugal
habits, even when burdened with the care of three daughters. The history
of his relations with these daughters is the saddest page of his life.
"I looked that my vineyard should bring forth grapes, and it brought
forth wild grapes." If any lot on earth could have seemed enviable to an
imaginative mind and an affectionate heart, it would have been that of
an Antigone or a Romola to a Milton. Milton's daughters chose to reject
the fair repute that the simple fulfilment of evident duty would have
brought them, and to be damned to everlasting fame, not merely as
neglectful of their father, but as embittering his existence. The
shocking speech attributed to one of them is, we may hope, not a fact;
and it may not be true to the letter that they conspired to rob him, and
sold his books to the ragpickers. The course of events down to his
death, nevertheless, is sufficient evidence of the unhappiness of his
household. Writing "Samson Agonistes" in calmer days, he lets us see how
deep the iron had entered into his soul:

"I dark in light exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool
In power of others, never in my own."

He probably never understood how greatly he was himself to blame. He
had, in the first place, neglected to give his daughters the education
which might have qualified them in some measure to appreciate him. The
eldest, Anne, could not even write her name; and it is but a poor excuse
to say that, though good-looking, she was deformed, and afflicted with
an impediment in her speech. The second, Mary, who resembled her mother,
and the third, Deborah, the most like her father, were better taught;
but still not to the degree that could make them intelligent doers of
the work they had to perform for him. They were so drilled in foreign
languages, including Greek and Latin (Hebrew and Syriac are also
mentioned, but this is difficult of belief), that they could read aloud
to him without any comprehension of the meaning of the text. Sixty years
afterwards, passages of Homer and Ovid were found lingering as melodious
sounds in the memory of the youngest. Such a task, inexpressibly
delightful to affection, must have been intolerably repulsive to dislike
or indifference: we can s