Family affection

“ Probably no picture of domestic affection is more touching than that subsisting between a man already past youth and his aged and widowed mother,—the little tender attentions, the watchful kindnesses on both sides, those graceful concessions which each knows how and when to make of their own comfort, and, above all, that blending of tastes by which, at last, each learns to adopt some of the other's likings, and, even in prejudices, to become more companionable. ”

“ And let my son in his turn render to his sister all the care and all the services which affection can inspire. Let them, in short, both feel that, in whatever positions they may be placed, they will never be truly happy but through their union. Let them follow our example. In our own misfortunes how much comfort has our affection for one another afforded us! And, in times of happiness, we have enjoyed that doubly from being able to share it with a friend; and where can one find friends more tender and more united than in one's own family? ”

“ There is something touching in the burst of pathetic affection which springs strongly from the heart of a worthy couple, when, seated among their own family, the feelings of the husband and father, the wife and mother, overpower them. ”

“ In the one or two cases of true family affection which I met with, I am sure that the young people who were so genuinely fond of their fathers and mothers at eighteen, would at sixty be perfectly delighted were they to get the chance of welcoming them as their guests. There is nothing which could please them better, except perhaps to watch the happiness of their own children and grandchildren. ”

“ Again, more beautiful and binding is the affection which subsists in the family circle. The bond that ties together husband and wife, that unites together brothers and sisters, brought up around the same domestic hearths, sharing in common joys and sorrows, how strong and enduring it ought to be, and especially that which exists between parents and the child. The recollection of a noble parent, of a devoted mother, time nor place nor change can ever uproot the affection from the heart. But, asks the voice of our text: "Lovest thou me more than these?" ”

“ But, lady, I have often observed that men, whose family affections are as deep and fervent as your son’s are for you and his brother, seldom have wandering passions, but that their love flows deep and steady in the channels prepared for it. ”

“ The affection that binds parents and children, brothers and sisters to one another in the family is both beautiful and delightful; and it were no wonder if, on the part of some, there were the desire that their intercourse should suffer no rude break, but go on unchanged for an indefinite time. But it is seldom God's will that family life shall remain unbroken. ”

“ Far worse than this happens when the child's love finds no natural outlets within her home: when she is the plain or the dull child of the family, and is left out in the cold, while the parents' affection is lavished on the rest. ”

“ We find here a state of society the elements of which are in some respects peculiarly simple and healthful, and in others exhibiting the imperfections of the earth's childhood. Family affection appears to be the strongest force in it, yet it is family affection with the defects of an untaught, untrained morality. ”

“ The intensity of the sentiments of love and hate that cement and disrupt the family is indicated in the analyses of the so-called "family romance." Life histories reveal the natural tendencies toward reciprocal affection of mother and son or father and daughter, and the mutual antagonism of father and son or mother and daughter. ”

“ Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief." ”

“ In that case conjugal attachment would come first, as being the feeling through which the family comes into existence as a new social unit, which in many cases consists simply of the original pair. Domestic sympathy, when once formed by marriage, is perpetuated first by parental then by filial affection ”

“ Family bonds, strengthened by deep affection, are not broken because the faithful boy, grown up a healthy and strong man, leaves to go under his own blessed roof, taking with him to his last day the cherished recollections of the happy days he has passed in the equally blessed parental home. ”

“ This fact can be easily explained as to a great extent a natural consequence of the necessary conditions of family life. Brothers and sisters possess claims upon the attention and affection of the loved parent (especially when that parent is the mother) which are apt to conflict seriously with one another and may on occasion be felt by the respective claimants to be almost if not quite as irksome and exorbitant as those of the other parent, whose competition with the child in this respect we have already noted. ”

“ The fundamental requisite of family happiness is love; not merely sex attraction, which may be wholly selfish, but love that is service, happier to give than to receive, willing to share. In some respects similarity between husband and wife is important in their social and intellectual tastes, moral standards, religious faith, refinement, love of children, rate of ability to progress, degree of seriousness or frivolousness, ardor and expression of affection. ”

“ And of the Moral Life.—​And her affections—the movements of the outgoing tender child-heart—how are they treated? There are few mothers who do not take pains to cherish the family affections; but when the child comes to have dealings with outsiders, [Pg 17] do no worldly maxims and motives ever nip the buds of childish love? ”

“ I enjoy myself very much with the kind family here, in which there seems to prevail a great deal of mutual affection, and somewhat of that cheerfulness which existed amongst us when we were so large a family altogether at home. ”

“ Her affection for the Large Family increased—as, indeed, her affection for everything she could love increased. ”

“ Their children play and associate together with the greatest affection as brothers and sisters; while each mother apparently manifests as much kindness and tender regard for the children of the others, as for her own. And morning and evening, when the husband calls together his family to worship the Lord and call upon his name, they all bow the knee, and, with the greatest union of feeling, offer their devotions to the Most High. ”

“ The family constitutes a most sacred and important social unit, and because of its intrinsic nature, it can best develop in the child the highest personal sentiment and social virtue. Among these are affection, sympathy, love, generosity and good will. ”

“ Until the family as we know it ceases to exist, nobody will dare to analyze parental affection as distinguished from that general human sympathy which has secured to many an orphan fonder care in a stranger's house than it would have received from its actual parents. ”

“ She should soothe you with her sympathies, divert your troubled mind, and make the whole family happy by the gentleness of her manners, and the native goodness of her heart. A husband should also likewise do his part. ”

“ Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes; family union elevates. ”

“ When I went into their family, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The mistress of the house was a model of affection [120] and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling—“that woman is a Christian.” ”

“ A prominent and beautiful feature in her life, one that has won to her the truest respect, the unperishable love of her friends is the position she has maintained amid her husband's family, like a loving queen mother, in his home circle. ”

“ The mother's heart yearns fondly as she, too, watches with more intense anxiety, lest a shadow should fall, or a rude wind should blow, upon her opening flower. Thus, while the sons in a family may, perhaps, call forth more of the pride and the ambition of their parents, the daughters claim almost all the tenderness, and more than an equal portion of watchfulness and care. ”

“ But a family that ruins itself to save the honor of a name, a mother who lets her children go one by one to do their duty, a young man who prefers the charm of a pure marriage to the temptations of a sensual love—what interest have such people for us? ”

“ It is for the husband to learn how to gather around his family the comforts of life, how to control his passions and temper, and how to command the respect, not only of his family but of all his brethren, sisters and friends. ”

“ Had he not himself seen fifty households wrecked because the husband, when he took a girl, little more than a child in years, and quite a child in mind and experience, from her own family, and the wholesome influences and companionship of father, mother, brothers, sisters, probably left her to go unguided, to form her character as best she could, putting that grave responsibility in her own weak hands as if the mere making a wife of her must make her a mature and sensible woman also? ”

“ Then the start and the sigh, "Oh, dear, she's gone—sister is gone!" And fresh tears would flow.
Gone, but not lost; for that First Marriage in the family opened to us a fountain of happiness, pure as the spring of self-sacrifice could make it. Our household darling has linked us to a world of needy and perishing spirits—a world that asks for the energy and the aid of those who go from us, and those who remain in the dear country of their birth. God bless her and her charge! Dear sister Ellen! ”

“ Are not marriage and death twined hand in hand, to render that home desolate which once resounded with the laugh of many gleesome hearts, with the glad tones of youthful revelling and joy? True, in those halls they often meet again, and the hearts of the parents are not lone, for the family of each child is a source of inexpressible interest to them ”

“ In this little volume we have a picture, too, of what the world would call a happy family, in which a naturally strong, honest woman is shrivelled into a mere echo of her husband, and the popular sentiment of the class to which she belongs. ”

“ It is hardly conceivable that in any society, however primitive, there were not some real families—even when custom ran otherwise—in which marriage meant love and kindness and the mutual sharing of responsibilities. And these families, today as always, are the creators and preservers of the spiritual gains of the human race. It has been beautifully said of the family in such a form, that "it is greater than love itself, for it includes, ennobles, makes permanent, all that is best in love. ”

“ When you think of your father and mother or other loved ones in the other life, do you not think of them as married? Do you think that family relationships are broken up when all meet again in the hereafter? Of course, you believe that your father and mother continue married if they truly love each other and want to live together; otherwise not; they find their true mates. ”

“ Give to such natures as good, kind, and conscientious a husband as you will, do you think he can ever satisfy the ardent longings of their mind and heart? Do you think they can find in the family the realization of the brilliant dream caressed by them from the earliest years of infancy? ”

“ Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life. ”

“ Family ties have their own particular sancity, and the marriage relation, its omnipotent, heaven-inspiring, all-embracing love; but friendship, independent of family ties, recognizing no external bond of union,—the spontaneous out-gushing of kindred spirits towards each other, breathes in an atmosphere peculiarly its own. ”

“ If the sentimental theory of family relationship encourages bad manners and personal slovenliness and uncleanness in the home, it also, in the case of sentimental people, encourages the practice of rousing and playing on the affections of children prematurely and far too frequently. ”

“ I remember once to have read in some French author that the attachment we feel to home, the sacred names of son and brother, are not more than the instincts of habit; that natural affection, as it is called, has no real existence; and that it is the mere force of repetition that forms the tie by which we love those whom we call father or mother. ”

“ So let the father and mother treat each other and their children, and you will, my readers, obtain a noble reward in the increasing happiness and comfort of your family circles—in the manliness which will belong to the sons—in the mental and moral graces which will adorn the daughters. The family will thus become the school of virtue and the bulwark of society—the reciprocal influence of brothers and sisters thus trained will be of untold power on each other's character. ”

“ We may look about us and see what it is and can do for men and women. Few, perhaps, are standing on the heights of their own being when they build the family altar. Yet in the love and sacrifice of plain and unknown fathers who cheerfully toil for their loved ones, in the patient endurance of simple-hearted mothers who give so much of their lives in ready service to husband and family, in the frolic-joy and eager activity of ordinary children whose only dower is the free and happy service of their parents, is the fruit and the promise of the human family. ”

“ Never had I better understood the unspeakable charm of family love. What calm enjoyment in that happiness which is always shared with others; in that community of interests which unites such various feelings; in that association of existences which forms one single being of so many! ”

“ Let us call to assize the loves of our parents, the affection of our wives and children, and they are all dumb shows and dreams, without reality, truth, or constancy. For first there is a strong bond of affection between us and our Parents; yet how easily dissolved! We betake our selves to a woman, forget our mother in a wife, and the womb that bare us, in that that shall bear our Image. This woman blessing us with children, our affection leaves the level it held before, and sinks from our bed unto our issue and picture of Posterity, where affection holds no steady mansion. ”