autocratic centre of the family now as of the nursery, thirty years
before. Taking into account the chance--no, the certainty--of great
differences between parents and children in matters of temperament and
taste, it is easy to see that great suffering must result from this;
suffering, too, which involves real loss and hindrance to growth. It is
really a monstrous wrong; but it seems to be rarely observed by the world,
and never suspected by those who are most responsible for it. It is
perhaps a question whether the real tyrannies in this life are those that
are accredited as such. There are certainly more than even tyrants know!

Every father and mother has it within easy reach to become the intimate
friend of the child. Closest, holiest, sweetest of all friendships is this
one, which has the closest, holiest tie of blood to underlie the bond of
soul. We see it in rare cases, proving itself divine by rising above even
the passion of love between man and woman, and carrying men and women
unwedded to their graves for sake of love of mother or father. When we
realize what such friendship is, it seems incredible that parents can
forego it, or can risk losing any shade of its perfectness, for the sake
of any indulgence of the habit of command or of gratifying of selfish
preference.

In the ideal household of father and mother and adult children, the one
great aim of the parents ought to be to supply, as far as possible to each
child, that freedom and independence which they have missed the
opportunity of securing in homes of their own. The loss of this one thing
alone is a bitterer drop in the loneliness of many an unmarried woman than
parents, especially fathers, are apt even to dream,--food and clothes and
lodgings are so exalted in unthinking estimates. To be without them would
be distressingly inconvenient, no doubt; but one can have luxurious
provision of both and remain very wretched. Even the body itself cannot