With respect to his domestic relations, it is agreed by his biographers that he manifested a very amiable character. He was a faithful and tender husband, although his consort possessed few estimable qualities; a fond and indulgent father, although his children obtained a much smaller share of his solicitude than his garden and museum. His wife, who, as we have seen, took charge of all his domestic arrangements, is described as having been of a masculine appearance, selfish, domineering, and destitute of accomplishments. Unable to hold any share in rational conversation, she had little desire to encourage it in others; and as her parsimony was still greater than her husband's, we may suppose that her mode of management was not very conducive to the comfort of her guests. As a mother being incapable of estimating the advantages of proper training, her daughters were in a great measure left destitute of the polite acquirements becoming their station in society; and the father being, as he says, "naturae productis unice intentus," did not trouble himself about uninteresting affairs of this nature. The result, so far as regards his son, we shall see in a subsequent section. It is generally acknowledged that Linnaeus was more addicted to the love of gold than becomes a philosopher, and that his style of living was by no means equal to his income. "For my own part," says his pupil Fabricius, "I can easily excuse him for having been a little too fond of money, when I consider those extremes of poverty which so long and so heavily overwhelmed him. It may also be said in his defence, that the parsimonious habits which he had contracted under the most pressing necessity remained with him ever after, and that he found it impossible to renounce them when he lived in the midst of abundance." This apology may perhaps suffice, especially when we find it asserted that his frugality never degenerated into avarice.