'I hope I may have as much courage,' said Harvey.
'Life is a compromise, my dear fellow. If the world at large would suddenly come round to a cultivation of the amiable virtues—well and good. But there's no hope of it. As it is, our little crabs must grow their hard shell, or they've no chance.'
'What about progress? In educating children, we are making the new world.'
Morton assented.
'But there's no hurry. The growth must be gradual—will be, whether we intend it or not. The fact is, I try not to think overmuch about my children. It remains a doubt, you know, whether education has any influence worth speaking of.'
'To me,' said Harvey, 'the doubt seems absurd. In my own case, I know, a good system of training would have made an enormous difference. Practically, I was left to train myself, and a nice job I made of it. Do you remember how I used to talk about children before I had one? I have thought it was the talk of a fool; but, perhaps, after all, it had more sanity than my views nowadays.'
'Medio tutissimus,' murmured Basil.
'And what about your girls?' asked the other, when they had smoked in silence. 'Is the difficulty greater or less?'
'From my point of view, less. For one thing, I can leave them entirely in the hands of their mother; if they resemble her, they won't do amiss. And there's no bother about work in life; they will have enough to live upon—just enough. Of course, they may want to go out into the world. I shall neither hinder nor encourage. I had rather they stayed at home.'
'Don't lose sight of the possibility that by when they are grown up there may be no such thing as "home". The word is dying out.'