I would not have my
reader think that he was consciously disrespectful to either of his
parents, or knew that his behaviour was unloving. He honoured their
character, indeed, but shrank from the simplicity of their manners; he
thought of them with no lively affection, though not without some kindly
feeling and much confidence--at the same time regarding himself with still
greater confidence. He had never been an idler, or disobedient; and had
made such efforts after theological righteousness as served to bolster
rather than buttress his conviction that he was a righteous youth, and
nourished his ignorance of the fact that he was far from being the person
of moral strength and value that he imagined himself. The person he saw in
the mirror of his self-consciousness was a very fine and altogether
trustworthy personage; the reality so twisted in its reflection was but a
decent lad, as lads go, with high but untrue notions of personal honour,
and an altogether unwarranted conviction that such as he admiringly
imagined himself, such he actually was: he had never discovered his true
and unworthy self! There were many things in his life and ways upon which
had he but fixed eyes of question, he would at once have perceived that
they were both judged and condemned; but so far, nevertheless, his father
and mother might have good hope of his future.
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