‘Be good friends,’ he murmurs, ‘my children,’ not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell hour, how little things, such as prejudice, difference of political or religious opinions, conflicting interests, and the like, affect us while we are in this world, and how perilous it is to attempt to link like with unlike.  I am quite certain that when relations do not, in common phrase, ‘get on well with one another,’ the best chance of their remaining friends is for them to keep apart.  This is gradually becoming recognised by ‘the common sense of most,’ as we see by the falling-off in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only too often partook of the character of that assembly which met under the roof of Mr, Pecksniff, with the disastrous result with which we are all acquainted.

The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, of course, there is to consider it; yet it is strange to see how even sensible men will welcome the Good-for-nothing, who chance to be ‘of kin’ to them, to the exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious claim.  The effect of this is an absolute immorality, since it offers a premium to unpleasant people, while it heavily handicaps those who desire to make themselves agreeable.  To give a particular example of this, though upon a large scale, I might cite Scotland, where, making allowance for the absence of that University system, which in England is so strong a social tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, than there are with us; this I have no hesitation in attributing to clanship—­the exaggeration of the family tie—­which substitutes nearness for dearness, and places a tenth cousin above the most charming of companions, who labours under the disadvantage of being ‘nae kin.’

Again, what is more common than to hear it said, in apology for some manifestly ill-conditioned and offensive person, that he is ’good to his family’?  The praise is probably only so far deserved that he does not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing even he treated them as he should do, and, moreover, entertained his ten-times removed cousins to dinner every Sunday, what is that to me who do not enjoy his unenviable hospitality?  Let his cousins speak well of him by all means; but let the rest of the world speak as they find.  I protest against the theory that the social virtues should limit themselves to the home circle, and still more, that they should extend to the distant branches of it to the exclusion of the world at large.

Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said—­and, I notice, said with a certain cynical pleasure—­that, notwithstanding his universal benevolence, he behaved with severity ta his own son.  I have not that intimate acquaintance with the circumstances which, to judge by the confidence of their assertions, his traducers possess, but I should be slow to believe, in the case of such a father, that the son did not deserve all he got, or was not forgiven even to the