Again: a burly costermonger was belabouring his donkey, and the wretched
beast fell beneath his cudgel: strange to say, Julian and Charles were
walking together that time; and the same sight affected each so
differently, that the one sided with the cruel man, and the other with
his suffering victim: Charles, in momentary indignation, rushed up to
the fellow, wrested the cudgel from his hand, and flung it over the
cliff; while Julian was so base, so cowardly, as to reward such generous
interference, by holding his weaker brother's arms, and inviting the
wrathful costermonger to expend the remainder of his phrensy on unlucky
Charles. Yes, and when at home Mrs. Tracy heard all this, she was silly
enough, wicked enough, to receive her truly noble son with ridicule, and
her other one, the child of her disgrace, with approval.
"It will teach you, Master Charles, not to meddle with common people and
their donkeys; and you may thank your brother Julian for giving you a
lesson how a gentleman should behave."
Poor Charles! but poorer Julian, and poorest Mrs. Tracy!
It would be easy, if need were, to enumerate multiplied examples tending
towards the same end--a large, masculine-featured mother's foolish
preference of the loud, bold, worldly animal, before the meek, kind,
noble, spiritual.
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