Nobody can read one
line ahead in the book of fate. No child is guaranteed to become an
adult. Any child may die to-morrow. How much greater for us the sting
of its death if its life shall not have been made as pleasant as
possible! What if its short life shall have been made as unpleasant as
possible? Conceive the remorse of Mrs. Thompson here if one of her
children were to die untimely--if one of them were stricken down now,
before her eyes, by this surfeit of too sudden joy!
However, we do not fancy that Mrs. Thompson is going to be thus
afflicted. We believe that there is a saving antidote in the cup of
her children's joy. There is something, we feel, that even now
prevents them from utter ecstasy. Some shadow, even now, hovers over
them. What is it? It is not the mere atmosphere of the room, so
oppressive to us. It is something more definite than that, and even
more sinister. It looms aloft, monstrously, like one of those
grotesque actual shadows which a candle may cast athwart walls and
ceiling. Whose shadow is it? we wonder, and, wondering, become sure
that it is Mr. Thompson's--Papa's.
The papa of Georgian children! We know him well, that awfully massive
and mysterious personage, who seemed ever to his offspring so remote
when they were in his presence, so frighteningly near when they were
out of it.
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