. Sitting below in his blank, cheerless bedroom, Newcome could hear
the lad and his friends talking, singing, and making merry overhead. Something
would be said in Clive's well-known tones, and a roar of laughter would proceed
from the youthful company. They had all sorts of tricks, bywords, waggeries, of
which the father could not understand the jest nor the secret. He longed to
share in it; but the party would be hushed if he went in to join it, and he
would come away sad at heart to think that his presence should be a signal for
silence among them, and that his son could not be merry in his company.
    We must not quarrel with Clive and Clive's friends, because they could not
joke and be free in the presence of the worthy gentleman. If they hushed when he
came in, Thomas Newcome's sad face would seem to look round, appealing to one
after another of them, and asking, »Why don't you go on laughing?« A company of
old comrades shall be merry and laughing together, and the entrance of a single
youngster will stop the conversation; and if men of middle age feel this
restraint with our juniors, the young ones surely have a right to be silent
before their elders. The boys are always mum under the eyes of the usher. There
is scarce any parent, however friendly or tender with his children, but must
feel sometimes that they have thoughts which are not his or hers, and wishes and
secrets quite beyond the parental control; and, as people are vain, long after
they are fathers, ay, or grandfathers, and not seldom fancy that mere personal
desire of domination is overweening anxiety and love for their family, no doubt
that common outcry against thankless children might often be shown to prove, not
that the son is disobedient, but the father too exacting. When a mother (as fond
mothers often will) vows that she knows every thought in her daughter's heart, I
think she pretends to know a great deal too much; nor can there be a wholesomer
task for the elders, as our young subjects grow up, naturally demanding liberty
and citizen's rights, than for us gracefully to abdicate our sovereign
pretensions and claims of absolute control. There's many a family chief who
governs wisely and gently, who is loth to give the power up when he should. Ah,
be sure, it is not youth alone that has need to learn humility! By their very
virtues, and the purity of their lives, many
