narrative.

"In families where there is or is not poverty there is commonly
discord. If a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a great family, a
family likewise is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed
to revolutions. An unpractised observer expects the love of
parents and children to be constant and equal. But this kindness
seldom continues beyond the years of infancy; in a short time the
children become rivals to their parents. Benefits are allowed by
reproaches, and gratitude debased by envy.

"Parents and children seldom act in concert; each child endeavours
to appropriate the esteem or the fondness of the parents; and the
parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their
children. Thus, some place their confidence in the father and some
in the mother, and by degrees the house is filled with artifices
and feuds.

"The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the old,
are naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope and
despondency, of expectation and experience, without crime or folly
on either side. The colours of life in youth and age appear
different, as the face of Nature in spring and winter. And how can
children credit the assertions of parents which their own eyes show
them to be false?

"Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims
by the credit of their lives. The old man trusts wholly to slow
contrivance and gradual progression; the youth expects to force his
way by genius, vigour, and precipitance. The old man pays regard