y dearly for his momentary
indulgence of temper.

I must have done writing, though I had a good deal more to say. God
bless you, dear. If you answer this letter directly, I will write
you a better next time.

Ever yours,
F. A. K.

The majority of parents--mothers, I believe I ought to say--err in one
or other excess with regard to their children. Love either blinds them
absolutely to their defects, or makes them so terribly alive to them as
to exaggerate every imperfection. It is hard to say which of the errors
is most injurious in its effects. I suppose according as the temperament
is desponding and diffident, or sanguine and self-sufficient, the one
system or the other is likely to do most harm.

My mother's intensely nervous organization, acute perceptions, and
exacting taste made her in everything most keenly alive to our faults
and deficiencies. The unsparing severity of the sole reply or comment
she ever vouchsafed to our stupidity, want of sense, or want of
observation--"I hate a fool"--has remained almost like a cut with a lash
across my memory. Her wincing sensitiveness of ear made it all but
impossible for me to practice either the piano or singing within hearing
of her exclamations of impatient anguish at my false chords and flat
intonations; and I suppose nothing but my sister's _unquenchable_
musical genius would have sustained her naturally timid, sensitive
disposition under such discipline.

Two of our family, my eldest brother and myself, were endowed with such
robust self-esteem and elastic conceit as not only defied repression,
but, unfortunately for us, could never be effectually snubbed; with my
sister and my younger brother the case was entirely different, and
encouragement was rather what they required. How well it is for the best
and wisest, as well as the least good and least wise, of trainers of
youth, that God is above all. I do not myself understand the love that
blinds one to the defects of those dear to one; their faults are part of
themselves, without which they could not be themselves, no more to be
denied or dissembled, it seems to me, than the color of their eyes or
hair. I do not feel the scruple which I observe in others, in alluding
to the failings of those they love. The mingled good and evil qualities
in my friends make up their individual identity, and neither from
m