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Bentinck's Tutor, One of the Family, by the Author of 'lost Sir Massingberd'.
Bentinck's Tutor One of the Family by the Author of 'lost Sir Massingberd' Author:James Payn General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1868 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTEB VIII. TUTOR AND PUPIL. The amount of education -- in the sense of learning -- that can be imparted to an ignorant young gentleman of eighteen, who considers himself old enough to be his own master, and who hates a book as a dog hates a stick, is very small. In the case of Bentinck Wood- ford, the foundations of whose scanty knowledge had been laid in a neighbouring grammar-school, where the son of the Squire of Sandalthwaite was treated with the respect he did not merit, it was infinitesimal. After two or three attempts, of a most resolute character, to relieve the fortress of his pupil's mind -- besieged by all the powers of Idleness -- Valentine Blake desisted from such forlorn-hopesaltogether. If the garrison rejected his supplies, it was clearly no use to strive to provision it; and although he still daily threw in a few handfuls of mental food, it was rather to save his own conscience than with any hope of a beneficial result. He resolved to try to do his duty to his charge by other means, namely, by working upon his better nature. However bad may be our dispositions, they are at least made up of materials, some of which are less objectionable than others; and it was these negative advantages which Valentine endeavoured to turn to good account. In place of study he substituted conversation, for although Bentinck was stubborn and antagonistic to an incredible degree, he judged that the lad would submit to be talked to, and even to vouchsafe replies when desired to do so, in consideration of his exemption from what he disliked still more. When the tutor confessed to Mr. Woodford the failu...« less