"Was I, her son, likely to be ignorant of the mother's character, or unable to gauge the strength of her prejudices--prejudices that seemed so much a part of her nature as to form a strong argument against Locke's assertion that there are no innate ideas? Indeed, in reading that philosopher's famous chapter, it always seemed to me, that if the average infant had to begin the A B C of life at the first letter, my mother must be a 'sport' or exception to the general rule, and must have been born with her brain richly stocked with family pride and social distinctions. In all the years I had lived with her I had never seen her unbend to a servant, or converse on equal terms with a tradesman. She had a full appreciation of the value of wealth when it was allied with good birth; but the millionaire manufacturer or the lucky speculator belonged to that outer circle of which she knew nothing, and of which she would believe no good. "I was her only son; and she was a widow. I owed her more than most sons owe their mothers. I did not stand as number four or five in a family circle, taking my share in the rough and tumble of family life. My mother had been all in all to me; and I had been all in all to her. I had been her friend and companion from the time I was able to understand the English language, the recipient of all her ideas, her likes and dislikes--from the early stage when the childish mind unconsciously takes shape and bent from the mind of the parent the child loves best. From my seventh year I was fatherless, and all that is sacred and sweet in home life began and ended for me with the word mother. "My mother was what Gerald Standish called 'a masterful woman,' a woman to whom it was natural to direct and initiate the whole business of life. My father was her opposite in temperament,--irresolute, lymphatic; and I think he must have handed her the reins of home government before their honeymoon was over. I remember him just well enough to remember that he left the direction of his life wholly to her; that he deferred to her judgment, and studied her feelings in every detail of his existence; and that he obviously adored her. I don't think he cared very much for me, his only child. I can recall no indication of warmth of feeling on his part, only a placid indifference, as of one whose affection was concentrated upon a single object, and whose heart had no room for any other image. He spoke of me as 'the boy,' and looked at me occasionally with an air of mild wonder, as if I were somebody else's son, whose growth took him by surprise. I never remember his expressing any opinion about me, except that I had grown since he looked at me last. "His feeling about me being thus tepid, it was hardly surprising that he should make what many people have called an unjust will. I have never disputed its justice, for I loved my mother too much to complain of the advantages of power and status which that will gave her.