Just as I could not
help feeling it unfair that a commandment which might have been fairly
appealed to if I had disobeyed him, should be used against me in
argument because I disagreed with him.
I did disagree with him utterly. Uncle Henry's office was a gloomy
place, where I had had to endure long periods of waiting as a child when
my mother took us in to the dentist, and had shopping and visiting of
uncertain length to do. Uncle Henry himself was no favourite with me. He
was harder than my father if you vexed him, and less genial when you
didn't. And I wanted to go to sea. But it did not seem a light matter to
me to oppose my parents, and they were both against me. My dear mother
was thrown into the profoundest distress by the bare notion. In her view
to be at sea was merely to run an imminent and ceaseless risk of
shipwreck; and even this jeopardy of life and limb was secondary to the
dangers that going ashore in foreign places would bring upon my mind and
morals.
So when my father spoke kindly to me at supper, and said that he had
arranged with Mr. Wood that I should read with him for two hours every
evening, in preparation for my future life as an articled clerk, my
heart was softened.
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