take the moral education of my children very much to heart. As Fred has during the last few days assumed something in tone and manner which displeases me—[that confounded parcel is the cause of it all]—I have given him a good lecture, and said, “Fred, I am not satisfied with you: I always set you a good example, and you forsake the right path; you are conceited and troublesome; you make verses, and you have kissed Betsy Rosemeyer. The fear of the Lord is the source of all wisdom: therefore you must not kiss the Rosemeyers, and you must not be so conceited. Immorality leads to destruction: read the Scriptures, and mark that Shawlman. He left the ways of the Lord: now he is poor, and dwells in a little garret; that is the consequence of immorality and bad conduct; he wrote improper articles in the Indépendance and let the ‘Aglaja’ fall: such are the consequences of being wise in one’s own eyes. He does not now know what o’clock it is, and his little boy wears knee-breeches. Think that your body is a temple of God, and that your father has always had to work very hard for his bread—[it is the truth]. Raise your eyes upwards, and endeavour to become a respectable broker when I go to Driebergen.[1] And consider all those men, who will not listen to good counsel, who trample upon religion and morality, and see yourself in these men. Do not think yourself equal to Stern, whose father is so rich, and who will always have
- ↑ Driebergen,—a village of country-seats; the summum bonum of a successful Amsterdam trader’s aspirations.
