I saw with less
pain, because I could relieve it. Yet some have refused my bounties;
more offended with my quickness to detect their wants, than pleased with
my readiness to succour them: and others, whose exigencies compelled
them to admit my kindness, have never been able to forgive their
benefactress. Many, however, have been sincerely grateful, without the
ostentation of gratitude, or the hope of other favours."

CHAP. XXVI.

THE PRINCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS UPON PRIVATE LIFE.

Nekayah, perceiving her brother's attention fixed, proceeded in her
narrative.

"In families, where there is, or is not, poverty, there is commonly
discord: if a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a great family, a family,
likewise, is a little kingdom, torn with factions, and exposed to
revolutions. An unpractised observer expects the love of parents and
children to be constant and equal; but this kindness seldom continues
beyond the years of infancy; in a short time the children become rivals
to their parents. Benefits are allayed by reproaches, and gratitude
debased by envy.

"Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child endeavours to
appropriate the esteem, or fondness of the parents; and the parents,
with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children; thus some
place their confidence in the father, and some in the mother, and, by
degrees, the house is filled with artifices and feuds.

"The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the old, are
naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope and despondence, of
expectation and experience, without crime or folly on either side. The
colours of life, in youth and age, appear different, as the face of
nature, in spring and winter. And how can children credit the assertions
of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false?

"Few parents act in such a manner, as much to enforce their maxims, by
the credit of their lives. The old man trusts wholly to slow contrivance
and gradual progression: the youth expects to force his way by genius,
vigour, and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the
youth reverences virtue. The old man deifies prudence: the youth commits
himself to magnanimity and chance. The young man, who intends no ill,
believes that none is intended, and, therefore, acts with openness and
candour: but his father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is
impelled to suspect, and, too often, allured to practise it. Age looks