Indeed a good father and a good teacher made the household the wonder of learned Europe. See what More wrote to the tutor he had chosen, when he was himself abroad on an embassy:-- "I have received, my dear Gunnel, your letters, such as they are wont to be, full of elegance and affection. Your love for my children I gather from your letters; their diligence from their own. I rejoice that little Elizabeth has shown as much modesty of deportment in her mother's absence as she could have done in her presence. Tell her that this delights me above all things; for, much as I esteem learning, which, when joined with virtue, is worth all the treasures of kings, what doth the fame of great scholarship, apart from well-regulated conduct, bring us, except distinguished infamy? Especially in women, whom men are ready enough to assail for their knowledge, because it is uncommon and casts a reproach on their own sluggishness. Among other notable benefits which solid learning bestows, I reckon this among the first, that we acquire it not for the mere sake of praise or the esteem of learned men, but for its own true value and use. Thus have I spoken, my Gunnel, somewhat the more in respect of not coveting vainglory, because of those words in your letter wherein you deem that the high quality of Margaret's wit is not to be depressed, which, indeed, is mine own opinion; but I think that they the most truly depress and affront their wit who accustom themselves to practise it on vain and base objects, rather than raise their minds by the study and approval of what is good in itself. It mattereth not in harvest-time whether the corn were sown by a man or a woman, and I see not why learning in like manner may not equally agree with both sexes; for by it reason is cultivated, and, as a field, sown with wholesome precepts, which bring forth good fruit. Even if the soil of a woman's brain be of its own nature bad, and apter to bear fern than corn, by which saying men oft terrify women from learning, I am of opinion that a woman's mind is, for that very reason, all the more in need of manure and good husbandry, that the defect of nature may be redressed." In these letters, and in many like them, there is given the best, and the most authentic picture of the household of the great Chancellor.