They, therefore, agreed, that a domestick tutor should be
procured, and hired an honest gentleman of mean conversation and narrow
sentiments, but whom, having passed the common forms of literary
education, they implicitly concluded qualified to teach all that was to
be learned from a scholar. He thought himself sufficiently exalted by
being placed at the same table with his pupil, and had no other view
than to perpetuate his felicity by the utmost flexibility of submission
to all my mother's opinions and caprices. He frequently took away my
book, lest I should mope with too much application, charged me never to
write without turning up my ruffles, and generally brushed my coat
before he dismissed me into the parlour. He had no occasion to complain
of too burdensome an employment: for my mother very judiciously
considered, that I was not likely to grow politer in his company, and
suffered me not to pass any more time in his apartment than my lesson
required. When I was summoned to my task, she enjoined me not to get any
of my tutor's ways, who was seldom mentioned before me but for practices
to be avoided. I was every moment admonished not to lean on my chair,
cross my legs, or swing my hands like my tutor; and once my mother very
seriously deliberated upon his total dismission, because I began, she
said, to learn his manner of sticking on my hat, and had his bend in my
shoulders, and his totter in my gait.
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