The boy, indeed, would have been altogether what his nurses called the "moral of his father," with a finer person and much greater corporeal powers, had it not been that his mother's nature was intimately mingled with the whole, and counterbalanced many faults, if it did not counteract them. Under her tuition he acquired a love of truth which never left him through life; but he had by nature a frank straightforwardness of character which was very winning. One saw, even in his very infancy and childhood, that the heart acted before the mind had been taught to act; and with a spirit which was utterly insusceptible of fear, and a body not very sensitive of suffering, some of his very good qualities might have led him to wound the feelings of others much more frequently than he did, if he had not possessed a natural tenderness and kindness of heart, which led him, with a sort of unerring instinct, to perceive the points on which others were vulnerable, and to spare them on those points, except when moved by some fierce opposition or angry passion. He was also by nature--and that, too, he derived from his mother--most affectionate. That is to say, he did not attach himself to every one, or lightly. He was not as the seed of the mistletoe or the moss, that fixes itself upon everything wherever it lights, and grows there till it is torn away. But he had within his heart the power of deep attachment; strong, permanent, immoveable. He was not likely to form friendships very easily, or to love often; but where he did love, he loved wholly and for ever.
The first instance in which these qualities were put to the proof, was in choosing between his father and his mother. We may call it choosing, though, indeed, there was no choice; for he could not but love the one, and it was very easy not to love the other. On that mother, then, fixed the whole strength of his infant affection, and it grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. Everything that occurred--the gentle warnings and reproaches which she sometimes forced herself to make when he behaved ill; her ill health; her deep melancholy; her conduct to her husband, and his conduct to her, all made him cling the more closely to her--made him love her and respect her the more.