"Be virtuous," says the copy-book, "and
you will be happy." Surely if a reputed virtue fails often in this
respect it is only an insidious form of vice, and if a reputed vice
brings no very serious mischief on a man's later years it is not so
bad a vice as it is said to be. Unfortunately, though we are all of
a mind about the main opinion that virtue is what tends to
happiness, and vice what ends in sorrow, we are not so unanimous about
details- that is to say as to whether any given course, such, we
will say, as smoking, has a tendency to happiness or the reverse.
I submit it as the result of my own poor observation, that a good
deal of unkindness and selfishness on the part of parents towards
children is not generally followed by ill consequences to the
parents themselves. They may cast a gloom over their children's
lives for many years without having to suffer anything that will
hurt them. I should say, then, that it shows no great moral
obliquity on the part of parents if within certain limits they make
their children's lives a burden to them.
Granted that Mr. Pontifex's was not a very exalted character,
ordinary men are not required to have very exalted characters.
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