And yet, as children went, the young Pontifexes were fortunate;
there would be ten families of young people worse off for one
better; they ate and drank good wholesome food, slept in comfortable
beds, had the best doctors to attend them when they were ill and the
best education that could be had for money. The want of fresh air does
not seem much to affect the happiness of children in a London alley:
the greater part of them sing and play as though they were on a moor
in Scotland. So the absence of a genial mental atmosphere is not
commonly recognised by children who have never known it. Young
people have a marvellous faculty of either dying or adapting
themselves to circumstances. Even if they are unhappy- very unhappy-
it is astonishing how easily they can be prevented from finding it
out, or at any rate from attributing it to any other cause than
their own sinfulness.
To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your
children that they are very naughty- much naughtier than most
children. Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of
perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their
own inferiority.
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