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And I have told her how beautiful you are in your age and how bright
your mind is with its old-time brightness, and how she and the children
would enjoy you. And I have told her how singularly young Pamela is
looking, and what a fine large fellow Sam is, and how ill the lingering
syllable "my" to his name fits his port and figure.
Well, Pamela, after thinking it over for a day or so, I came near
inquiring about a state-room in our ship for Sam, to please you, but my
wiser former resolution came back to me. It is not for his good that he
have friends in the ship. His conduct in the Bacon business shows that
he will develop rapidly into a manly man as soon as he is cast loose
from your apron strings.
You don't teach him to push ahead and do and dare things for himself,
but you do just the reverse. You are assisted in your damaging work by
the tyrannous ways of a village--villagers watch each other and so
make cowards of each other. After Sam shall have voyaged to Europe by
himself, and rubbed against the world and taken and returned its cuffs,
do you think he will hesitate to escort a guest into any whisky-mill in
Fredonia when he himself has no sinful business to transact there?
No, he will smile at the idea. If he avoids this courtesy now from
principle, of course I find no fault with it at all--only if he thinks
it is principle he may be mistaken; a close examination may show it is
only a bowing to the tyranny of public opinion.
I only say it may--I cannot venture to say it will. Hartford is not a
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