"Take the reverse of the picture. The infancy of the poor child is one of cries, too often of blows ; natural affection has given way before the iron pressure of want. The old proverb, that, "When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window," is true in a far more general sense than the one in which it is generally applied. They have the floor for a bed ; the scant and mouldering remnant of food for dinner ; the cold hearth, where the wind blows in the snow ;—these physical sufferings react on the moral world, they deaden and embitter the sweetest of our feelings. The parent half loves, half loathes, the child that takes the bread from his own mouth ; and the child looks on that as tyranny, which is only misery. It learns to fear before it learns to love."
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Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides)
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