They approach you with confidence,
yet with modesty, and are respectful even in the mirth of childish
play. Around the mansions of these people universally are
pleasure-grounds, permeated with delightful promenades through
parterres of flowers and lawns of grass, covered with the delicious
shade thrown from the extended limbs and dense foliage of the great
trees. These children, when wandering here, never trespass upon a
parterre or pluck unbidden a flower, being restrained only by a sense
of propriety and decency inculcated from the cradle, and which grows
with their growth, and at maturity is part of their nature. Could
children of Anglo-Norman blood be so restrained? Would the wild
energies of these bow to such control, or yield such obedience from
restraint or love? Certainly in their deportment they are very
different, and seem only to yield to authority from fear of punishment,
and dash away into every kind of mischief the moment this is removed.
Nor is this fear and certainty of infliction of punishment in most
cases found to be of sufficient force to restrain these inherent
proclivities.
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