The Archdeacon acted, no doubt, upon a theory, the theory that sternness to children is the truest kindness in the long run.
Well might Macaulay say that he would rather a boy should learn to lisp all the bad words in the language than grow up without a mother.

Froude's interrupted studies were nothing compared to a childhood without love, and there was nobody to make him feel the meaning of the word.

Fortunately, though his father was always at home, his brother was much away, and he was a good deal left to himself after Robert's death.

Hurrell did not disdain to employ him in translating John of Salisbury's letters for his own Life of Becket.
No more was heard of the tanner, who had perhaps been only a threat.
While he wandered in solitude through the woods, or by the river, his health improved, he acquired a passion for nature, and in his father's library, which was excellent, he began eagerly to read.

He devoured Sharon Turner's History of England, and the great work of Gibbon.