“I have heard that, with some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent’s authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself – which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue.”

— Anne Brontë , book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. IV : The Party; Frederick to Reverend Millward

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Anne Brontë 148

British novelist and poet 1820–1849

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