Sir, said I, I will endeavour to conform myself, in all things, to your
will. I make no doubt but you will: and I'll endeavour to make my will
as conformable to reason as I can. And let me tell you, that this belief
of you is one of the inducements I have had to marry at all: for nobody
was more averse to this state than myself; and, now we are upon this
subject, I'll tell you why I was so averse.
We people of fortune, or such as are born to large expectations, of both
sexes, are generally educated wrong. You have occasionally touched upon
this, Pamela, several times in your journal, so justly, that I need say
the less to you. We are usually so headstrong, so violent in our wills,
that we very little bear control.
Humoured by our nurses, through the faults of our parents, we practise
first upon them; and shew the gratitude of our dispositions, in an
insolence that ought rather to be checked and restrained, than
encouraged.
Next, we are to be indulged in every thing at school; and our masters and
mistresses are rewarded with further grateful instances of our boisterous
behaviour.
But, in our wise parents' eyes, all looks well, all is forgiven and
excused; and for no other reason, but because we are theirs.
Our next progression is, we exercise our spirits, when brought home, to
the torment and regret of our parents themselves, and torture their
hearts by our undutiful and perverse behaviour to them, which, however
ungrateful in us, is but the natural consequence of their culpable
indulgence to us, from infancy upwards.
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