233.
He did not allow his daughters to learn any language, saying with a
gibe that one tongue was enough for a woman. They were not sent to any
school, and had some sort of teaching at home from a mistress. But in
order to make them useful in reading to him, their father was at the
pains to train them to read aloud in five or six languages, of none of
which they understood one word. When we think of the time and labour
which must have been expended to teach them to do this, it must occur
to us that a little more labour would have sufficed to teach them so
much of one or two of the languages, as would have made their reading
a source of interest and improvement to themselves. This Milton
refused to do. The consequence was, as might have been expected, the
occupation became so irksome to them, that they rebelled against it.
In the case of one of them, Mary, who was like her mother in person,
and took after her in other respects, this restiveness passed into
open revolt. She first resisted, then neglected, and finally came to
hate, her father. When some one spoke in her presence of her father's
approaching marriage, she said "that was no news to hear of his
wedding; but if she could hear of his death, that was something.
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