Chapter 42 - Page 2

retired from the dinner table, with his eyes, "it is a thousand
pities George had not been the elder. _He_ would have graced a dukedom or
a throne. Frank is only fit for a parson."

This ill-judged speech was uttered sufficiently loud to be overheard by
both the sons: on the younger, it made a pleasurable sensation for the
moment. His father--his dear father, had thought him fit to be a king; and
his father must be a judge, whispered his native vanity; but all this time
the connexion between the speech and his brother's rights did not present
themselves to his mind. George loved this brother too well, too
sincerely, to have injured him even in thought; and so far as Francis was
concerned, his vanity was as blameless as it was natural.

The effect produced on the mind of Francis was different both in substance
and in degree. It mortified his pride, alarmed his delicacy, and wounded
his already morbid sensibility to such an extent, as to make him entertain
the romantic notion of withdrawing from the world, and of yielding a
birthright to one so every way more deserving of it than himself.

From this period might be dated an opinion of Francis's, which never
afterwards left him; he fancied he was doing injustice to another, and
that other, a brother whom he ardently loved, by continuing to exist. Had
he met with fondness in his parents, or sociability in his playfellows,
these fancies would have left him as he grew into life. But the affections
of his parents were settled on his more promising brother; and his manners
daily increasing in their repulsive traits, drove his companions to the
society of others, more agreeable to their own buoyancy and joy.

Had Francis Denbigh, at this age, met with a guardian clear-sighted enough
to fathom his real character, and competent to direct his onward course,
he would yet have become an ornament to his name and country, and a useful
member of society. But no such guide existed. His natural guardians, in
his particular case, were his worst enemies; and the boys left school for
college four years afterwards, each advanced in his respective properties
of attraction and repulsion.

Irreligion is hardly a worse evil in a family than favoritism. When once
allowed to exist, in the breast of the parent, though hid apparently from
all other eyes, its sad consequences begin to show themselves. Effects are
produced, and we look in vain for the cause. The awakened sympathies of
reciprocal caresses and fondness are mistaken for uncommon feelings, and
the forbidding aspect of deadened affections is miscalled native
sensibility.

In this manner the evil increases itself, until manners are formed, and
characters created, that must descend with their possessor to the