worst that could happen. There is no use telling me that I love them, and they love me, — I know all that, but young people and old interfere with each other, and it is natural and proper for a bird to sit on its own nest, and hatch out its own eggs in its own way. Respect for the old is all very well, or rather it makes a difficulty, for you are not on an equality with people when you are obliged to show them respect. I have tried to behave so that my five children should not have too much respect for me, and I think I have succeeded pretty well, but there must always be a distance between us. Parents come and go in their children's lives, like strangers from a far country; there can never be perfect understanding from one generation to another, and too often there is, on the contrary, interference and irritation.
It seems a dreadful thing to say, but it is not wise to tempt Providence, and put too great a strain on the love, even of our best and dearest. It is asking a great deal of human nature; not that I have anything to complain of in my children, who have always been good to me, but I don't want to impose myself on them, for my own sake, as well as theirs; — and then it goes against the grain with me to take back the least part of what I have given them; it looks like ask-
