CHAPTER XXIV.

RELATIONS.

Or our relationships God has made some for us, and we have made some for ourselves.

If one's relations are celebrated, the honour is only reflected; but, if our relations have been ignoble, our honour is real and original. The ancients had correct ideas of true nobility, although those ideas have been again and again choked by prejudice. Horace, addressing Macænas, says :-" You affirm that it is of no consequence of what parents any man is born, so that he be a man of merit."*

Generally speaking, the bond of kindred is stronger than that of friendship-but, not seldom, it is the reverse, and the friends whom we have chosen are dearer to us than the uncles, and aunts, and cousins, who have been provided for us. And the reason is not far to seek; our dispositions, and tastes, and education, correspond with those of our friends, whereas they may differ very widely from those of our relations.

This very reason points to the danger of relations

* Hor. Sat., i. 6, 7.

being supplanted by friends, and admonishes us not to forget the obligations of blood, although the family relations may be of different condition and feeling from ourselves.

Friendship does sometimes really excel relationship; but sometimes flattery supplants consanguinity, and so designing parasites can make themselves useful and indispensable to a rich friend, and they manage to exclude relations by artful insinuations and plausible falsehoods.* The natural affection between rich and poor relations, especially, is apt to be weak, and needs to be riveted with Christian feeling.

That image, which is so true of a nation, a church, and a family, is also true of kindred—“If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it ;" but this will be true only of those who are in a healthy state, and full of sensibility and affection. In a paralyzed body this communication of feeling does not take place; but we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Parents ought to train up their children to feel an interest in their near relations; for, if children are not taught to love a mother's sisters and brothers, they may come to think it of no importance, if, in after-life, they neglect their own brothers and sisters. The old grand

* The flatterers are not alone to blame. Much of the guilt rests with the patrons, who are delighted with the blandishments and servility of their parasites: "Je préfère aux droits du sang l'affection qu'on me témoigne, et je ne me laisse prendre seulement que par le bien qu'on me fait."-Le Sage.

† 1 Cor. xii. 26, and cf. Plato, Rep., v. 10: "Orav ñov ǹμwv δάκτυλός του πληγῇ.

mother, living life over again in her grandchildren, it may be not duly esteemed by the young and thoughtless, has often been used by God as an instrument for heavenly influence. The maiden aunt, unselfish, cheerful, and devoted, a personage well known in many a family circle, has often counteracted a mother's partiality and indulgence by a wise and judicious training. Who knows how much of Timothy's gifts and graces were owing to the influence of his grandmother Lois? Certain it is that Basil the Great received his first instruction in religion from his grandmother Morina, a hearer and admirer of Gregory Thaumaturgus. Archbishop Usher, in his childhood, fell into very excellent hands. Two maiden aunts had been blind from their cradles, but the darkness did not extend to their minds. These amiable ladies devoted themselves to the training of their young nephew.

*

Vittoria Colonna was childless. Under these circumstances she undertook the education of Alphonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, a young cousin of her husband's. The task was a sufficiently arduous one; for the boy, beautiful, it is recorded, as an angel, and endowed with excellent capabilities of all sorts, was so wholly unbroken, and of so violent and ungovernable a disposition, that he had been the despair and terror of all who had hitherto attempted to educate him. Vittoria thought that she saw in the wild and passionate boy the materials of a worthy man. The event fully justified her judgment, and proved the really superior powers of mind

* Visconti, p. 77.

she must have brought to her task. Alphonso became a soldier of renown, not untinctured by those literary tastes which so remarkably distinguished his gentle preceptress. A strong and lasting affection grew between them, and Vittoria, proud with good reason of her work, was often wont to say that the reproach of being childless ought not to be deemed applicable to her, whose moral nature might well be said to have brought forth that of her pupil.*

In the process of years, and in the vicissitudes of life, some are raised and others are lowered. These elevations and abasements destroy the old level on which relations used to meet. Sometimes great elevation of character may destroy their society by rendering the parties mutually unsuitable. While the one has been rising, the other has been sinking. The one has become more polished and exalted, the other more barbarous and degraded. The unfortunate shrinks from the prosperous; the prosperous shudders at the unfortunate.† Or misconduct may render one side unfit to be received into the other's circle, but nothing can destroy the relationship; and it should be borne in mind that however unaccomplished or ill-conditioned they may be they are still relations, and must be so for evermore.

Ill-matched relations live best apart, especially if their tastes, tempers, and opinions do not agree. The rich man is apt to arrogate all his success to himself, the poor

Trollope's "Decade of Italian Women," i. 307.

† καὶ μή μ ̓ ὄκνῳ

δείσαντες ἐκπλαγῆτ ̓ ἀπηγριωμένον.

Soph. Philoc., 225.

is apt to impute it to fortune. The prosperous host requires attention to all his petty rules and domestic regulations; the poor guest cannot change his habits like his clothes, and conform at once. The rich thinks he has the best of the argument, because he has the best status; the poor man feels he is in the right, and regards the hospitality he is receiving as an unfair weight thrown into the scale, and, accordingly, there is offence on the one side and resentment on the other. This situation did not escape the great English observer of life and manners :-" Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you that, though she harbours you as her kinsman, she is nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, an' it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell."*

The question how to deal with poor relations is a difficult one. It must be hard for a rich, self-made man, to hear a sister or an aunt at his dinner-table saying, "Thank you, sir," to the footman. Again, poor relations are not aware how painful their visits are, and how the servants laugh at the disreputable-looking person in the hall, who announces himself as "master's cousin." These less fortunate relations are envious of their more prosperous kinsmen, and regard them as proud and supercilious, when they are, in fact, only writhing under the ridicule and the dishonour brought upon them by some ill-bred or indelicate kinsman.

"Twelfth Night,” ii. 3.