Page:Our Grandfather by Vítězslav Hálek (1887).pdf/38

 “You see, John dear,” he said, “when you reflect upon your life it has always been something sacred to me. Thou wert yet a little child when we two grey-headed folk wept over thee for joy to see what a merry little thing thou wert; so ready, too, to take hold of anything good. And thou wast worthy of the pride we felt in thee. Thou didst prosper in everything and wert everywhere well spoken of. I well believed that I was sowing good seed in thy heart. If it was not all good, forgive me, my will was good, and if all did not turn out as I expected, who is to blame for that? We always sow in hope that the harvest will succeed, but also it does not always depend upon ourselves. Sometimes the sky grows overcast, and when I ponder everything from thy young days it does not yet come into my head that thou deliberately desirest my affliction. Tears of joy and tears of affliction are two quite different things, and a father is hardly reconciled to weep in affliction over his son. What I have instilled into thee, impart again to thy children, but recollect that it is very sickening to be no longer obeyed by a son, on whom one has lavished every attention, and, indeed, I should not wish that thou shouldst ever experience it in thy children.”

Grandfather stood there almost meek and gentle. Even Uncle John felt that much, very much, of what had so long separated him from grandfather’s heart fell from him all at once. Those remembrances of early life, of that family union and that peace which had never been disturbed, awakened in him an eager longing to win back that peace which had been banished from their home as if by enchantment.

A man has moments when he slackens in his opposition. The harsher characteristics of those against whom we