m
1 s
FILIAL AFFECTION.
religion tliey profess, and the duties it en joints.
As many of the young men emigrate
for employment, the Genevese ladies often
marry foreigners, who become acquainted
with them in visiting the city.
I have mentioned, that the affection of
children to parents is more durable, and I
should say stronger, with the Genevese,
than with the English. I had not an opportunity
of observing how far this may
be the case in France, but I am informed
that there also, a more lasting and affectionate
intercourse is kept up, late in life,
between children and parents, than we
commonly observe in our own country.
Now to what cause or causes can this be
attributed? it may be worth while, on
such a subject, to pause a moment and
enquire. In England there is such a dread
of any display of affection, that, to avoid
this, it seems sometimes thought expedient
to strangle affection itself. In great public
schools, the affection of boys to their parents
is not treated with much respect,
but is too frequently quizzed, and to trick
the old one out of money by any pretence,
is considered almost as honourable as
smouchingp English gentlemen keep their
servants at a more awful distance than the
French, and perhaps the same may be said
respecting their sons. The formal appellations
of Sir, on one side, and of Dich or
Tom, on the other, are not, perhaps, the
best that can be chosen, to keep alive kind
feelings between fathers and sons. He
must know little of the constitution of the
human mind, who does not admit the influence
of names on habitual feelings. But
the great cause of the evil we are speaking
of, is of a more serious nature. In a country
where immense wealth and a splendid
style of living are worshipped as the very
first of the d i I ^ m a j o r e s , if they are not
reckoned supreme, a young man heir to
a title, or great fortune, cannot avoid feeling
how much the possession of his father’s
estates and wealth would increase his consequence
in general society : he is told it
at an early age by the domestics of the
family; he is daily told it afterwards by
his own observation. It is one of the
curses of great riches, when combined with
luxury, to weaken or destroy natural affec-
* A term well known in some of our public schools.