More potent, at any rate in its subsequent effects, was the atmosphere of gloom and religious guilt that emanated from a parent who believed that both he and his family lay under a mysterious curse and who, notwithstanding his worldly success, lived in constant expectation of divine retribution. Thus, in a retrospective entry in his journals, his son could speak of ‘the dark background which, from the very earliest time, was part of my life’ and recollect the ‘dread with which my father filled my soul, his own frightful melancholy, and all the things in this connection which I do not even note
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