The Missing Angel

To-know all is to forgive all. So, therefore, if you would censure
Tydvil Jones because of what happened when he made the attempt to
recapture his lost youth, you should know why and how he lost his youth.

A biographical introduction to a story is always boring, but I cannot
help that. You must know how Tydvil was brought up or it will be
impossible to understand him. When you know he began life with a
handicap that not one man in a million could carry to the winning post
you will recognise that he might have been much worse than he was.

To begin with Tydvil was an only child. His father was middle-aged when
Tydvil arrived, and was a man deeply absorbed in his business. His
mother was a woman of iron will and an ultra pious disposition. That she
insisted on calling her son Tydvil because his father had been born in
Merthyr Tydvil, and had her way, is one proof of the inflexibility of
her purpose.

It was the boy's good luck that with his mother's will he inherited the
business ability of his father. As there was not room in one family for
two will-powers such as her own, Mrs. Jones, senior, did her best to
eradicate that of her son in his infancy; but never recognised that,
though suppressed, it remained latent.

Now, Mrs. Jones as the moving spirit in half a dozen societies for the
moral improvement of everybody and everything, obtained an insight into
aspects of life that are usually kept decently covered up. Not being as
wise as she believed herself to be, and seeing results without
understanding causes, she was firmly convinced that all men were brutes.
She asserted her belief so often that the natural brutality of man
became the basic axiom of her life.

She was determined, therefore, that her son would grow up an exception,
and took measures accordingly. It was the boy's hard luck that; as an
only child, she was able to devote her entire attention to him while she
was not otherwise engaged in reforming society.