illogicality, excepted him. He never suspected that his father
might be the subjective product of a diseased imagination. From
his earliest years he had taken him for granted, as a most
undeniable and lovable fact. To be born one thing and grow up
another--Ansell had accomplished this without weakening one of
the ties that bound him to his home. The rooms above the shop
still seemed as comfortable, the garden behind it as gracious, as
they had seemed fifteen years before, when he would sit behind
Miss Appleblossom's central throne, and she, like some
allegorical figure, would send the change and receipted bills
spinning away from her in little boxwood balls. At first the
young man had attributed these happy relations to his own tact.
But in time he perceived that the tact was all on the side of his
father. Mr. Ansell was not merely a man of some education; he had
what no education can bring--the power of detecting what is
important. Like many fathers, he had spared no expense over his
boy,--he had borrowed money to start him at a rapacious and
fashionable private school; he had sent him to tutors; he had
sent him to Cambridge. But he knew that all this was not the
important thing. The important thing was freedom. The boy must
use his education as he chose, and if he paid his father back it
would certainly not be in his own coin. So when Stewart said, "At
Cambridge, can I read for the Moral Science Tripos?" Mr. Ansell
had only replied, "This philosophy--do you say that it lies
behind everything?"

"Yes, I think so. It tries to discover what is good and true."

"Then, my boy, you had better read as much of it as you can."