authority. His mockery, the play of an intellect unsympathetic by resolve and upon principle, was freezing to a child; and the most distinct consciousness which his presence produced upon the boy was the assurance that he, Edgar, was infallibly about to do something which would cause displeasure." That this was a common attitude with parents in the old régime may be inferred from Châteaubriand's statement that he and his sister, transformed into statues by their father's presence, recovered their life only when he left the room; and by the assertion of Mirabeau that even while at school, two hundred leagues away from his father, "the mere thought of him made me dread every youthful amusement which could be followed by the slightest unfavorable result."
Yet at the present day we are assured by Mr. Marshall that in France "the art of spoiling has reached a development which is unknown elsewhere, and maternal affection not infrequently descends to folly and imbecility." But then the clever critic of French Home Life had never visited America when he wrote those lines, although some of the stories he tells
