He wanted his children to be brought up in the fresh pure air, and
among other children who were happy and contented; but being still
ignorant of the fortune that awaited him, he insisted that they should
pass their earlier years among the poor rather than the rich. I
remonstrated, but he was very decided about it; and when I reflected
that they were illegitimate, I was not sure but that what Ernest
proposed might be as well for everyone in the end. They were still
so young that it did not much matter where they were, so long as
they were with kindly, decent people, and in a healthy neighbourhood.
"I shall be just as unkind to my children," he said, "as my
grandfather was to my father, or my father to me. If they did not
succeed in making their children love them, neither shall I. I say
to myself that I should like to do so, but so did they. I can make
sure that they shall not know how much they would have hated me if
they had had much to do with me, but this is all I can do. If I must
ruin their prospects, let me do so at a reasonable time before they
are old enough to feel it."
He mused a little and added with a laugh:
"A man first quarrels with his father about three-quarters of a year
before he is born.
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