A Knight of the Nineteenth Century | Page 2

merely for the
sake of the marvellous interest which they ever have for children, but in
the hope, also, that the moral they carry with them might remain as
germinating seed. At an early age the mother had commenced taking
him to church, and often gave him an admonitory nudge as his restless
eyes wandered from the venerable face in the pulpit. In brief, the
apparent influences of his early life were similar to those existing in
multitudes of Christian homes. On general principles, it might be hoped
that the boy's future would be all that his friends could desire; nor did
he himself in early youth promise so badly to superficial observers; and
the son of the wealthy Mrs. Haldane was, on the part of the world, more
the object of envy than of censure. But a close observer, who judged of
characteristic tendencies and their results by the light of experience,
might justly fear that the mother had unwittingly done her child
irreparable wrong.
She had made him a tyrant and a relentless task-master even in his
infancy. As his baby-will developed he found it supreme. His nurse
was obliged to be a slave who must patiently humor every whim. He
was petted and coaxed out of his frequent fits of passion, and beguiled
from his obstinate and sulky moods by bribes. He was the eldest child
and only son, and his little sisters were taught to yield to him, right or
wrong, he lording it over them with the capricious lawlessness of an
Eastern despot. Chivalric deference to woman, and a disposition to
protect and honor her, is a necessary element of a manly character in
our Western civilization; but young Haldane was as truly an Oriental as
if he had been permitted to bluster around a Turkish harem; and those

whom he should have learned to wait upon with delicacy and tact
became subservient to his varying moods, developing that essential
brutality which mars the nature of every man who looks upon woman
as an inferior and a servant. He loved his mother, but he did not
reverence and honor her. The thought ever uppermost in his mind was,
"What ought she to do for me?" not, "What ought I to do for her?" and
any effort to curb or guide on her part was met and thwarted by
passionate or obstinate opposition from him. He loved his sisters after a
fashion, because they were his sisters; but so far from learning to think
of them as those whom it would be his natural task to cherish and
protect, they were, in his estimation, "nothing but girls," and of no
account whatever where his interests were concerned.
In the most receptive period of life the poison of selfishness and
self-love was steadily instilled into his nature. Before he had left the
nursery he had formed the habit of disregarding the wills and wishes of
others, even when his childish conscience told him that he was
decidedly in the wrong. When he snatched his sisters' playthings they
cried in vain, and found no redress. The mother made peace by
smoothing over matters, and promising the little girls something else.
Of course, the boy sought to carry into his school life the same
tendencies and habits which he had learned at home, and he ever found
a faithful ally in his blind, fond mother. She took his side against his
teachers; she could not believe in his oppressions of his younger
playmates; she was absurdly indignant and resentful when some sturdy
boy stood up for his own rights, or championed another's, and sent the
incipient bully back to her, crying, and with a bloody nose. When the
pampered youth was a little indisposed, or imagined himself so, he was
coddled at home, and had bonbons and fairy tales in the place of
lessons.
Judicious friends shook their heads ominously, and some even ventured
to counsel the mother to a wiser course; but she ever resented such
advice. The son was the image of his lost father, and her one impulse
was to lavish upon him everything that his heart craved.
As if all this were not enough, she placed in the boy's way another

snare, which seldom fails of proving fatal. He had only to ask for
money to obtain it, no knowledge of its value being imparted to him.
Even when he took it from his mother's drawer without asking, her
chidings were feeble and irresolute. He would silence and half satisfy
her by saying:
"You can take anything of mine that you want. It's all in the family;
what difference does it make?"
Thus every avenue of temptation in the city which could be entered by
money was open to him, and he was not slow in choosing