I never saw Mr. P. so much excited. He fairly put his handkerchief to
his eyes, and I really believe he cried! But I think he exaggerates
these things: and as he had a very dear friend that went worse and
worse, until he died frightfully, a drunkard, it is not strange he
should speak so warmly about it. But as Mrs. Croesus says:

"What can you do? You can't curb these boys, you don't want to break
their spirits, you don't want to make them milk-sops."

When I repeated this speech to Mr. P., he said to me with a kind of
solemnity:

"Tell Mrs. Croesus that I am not here to judge nor dictate: but she
may be well assured, that every parent is responsible for every child
of his to the utmost of the influence he can exert, whether he chooses
to consider himself so or not; and if not now, in this world, yet
somewhere and somehow, he must hear and heed the voice that called to
Cain in the garden, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?'"

I can't bear to hear Mr.P. talk in that way; it sounds so like
preaching. Not precisely like what I hear at church but like what we
mean when we say "preaching," without referring to any particular
sermon. However, he grants that young Timon is an extreme case: but,
he says, it is the result that proves the principle, and a state of
feeling which not only allows, but indirectly fosters, that result, is
frightful to think of.

"Don't think of it then, Mr. P.," said I. He looked at me for a moment
with the sternest scowl I ever saw upon a man's face, then he suddenly