Sons and parents

[Eva Elisabeth]

I feel similar. Wasn't Robert at times (e.g. when A. L. visited him in Exeter) embarrassed because of his father's appearance (or were it only Robert's fellow students who felt "compassion" - before they heard A. L. speaking and changed their minds?)? And his mother he once rebuffed: “No, mother, I do not propose to assist in entertaining Tom Thumb. My notions of duty, perhaps, are somewhat different than yours.” Seems he felt differences to both?!