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the future man, and to endeavour to secure his esteem, even as if he were
our equal. What can a parent have more at heart than the good opinion of
his child? In all our transactions with him our honour must be inviolate,
the integrity of our relations untainted: fate and circumstance may, when
he arrives at maturity, separate us for ever--but, as his aegis in
danger, his consolation in hardship, let the ardent youth for ever bear
with him through the rough path of life, love and honour for his parents.
We had lived so long in the vicinity of Eton, that its population of young
folks was well known to us. Many of them had been Alfred's playmates,
before they became his school-fellows. We now watched this youthful
congregation with redoubled interest. We marked the difference of character
among the boys, and endeavoured to read the future man in the stripling.
There is nothing more lovely, to which the heart more yearns than a
free-spirited boy, gentle, brave, and generous. Several of the Etonians had
these characteristics; all were distinguished by a sense of honour, and
spirit of enterprize; in some, as they verged towards manhood, this
degenerated into presumption; but the younger ones, lads a little older
than our own, were conspicuous for their gallant and sweet dispositions.
Here were the future governors of England; the men, who, when our ardour
was cold, and our projects completed or destroyed for ever, when, our drama
acted, we doffed the garb of the hour, and assumed the uniform of age, or
of more equalizing death; here were the beings who were to carry on the
vast machine of society; here were the lovers, husbands, fathers; here the
landlord, the politician, the soldier; some fancied that they were even now
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