XIX. MY ROMAN CONSULATE.




THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A JOURNALIST




CHAPTER I

A NEW ENGLAND MOTHER AND HER FAMILY


A theory is advanced by some students of character that in what
concerns the formation of the individual nature, the shaping and
determination of it in the plastic stage, and especially in respect to
the moral elements on which the stability and purpose of a man's life
depend, a man is indebted to his mother, for good or for ill.
The question is too abstruse for argument, but, so far as my own
observation goes, it tends to a confirmation of the theory. I have
often noticed in children of friends that in childhood the likeness
to the mother was so vivid that one found no trace of the father, but
that in maturity this likeness disappeared to give place to that of
the father. In my own case, taking it for what it is worth, I can only
wish that the mother's part had been more enduring, not that I regret
the effect of my father's influence, but because I think my mother had
some qualities from which my best are derived, and which I should like