Hil, is there a reason you're putting yourself through this?

Oh, dear. Elsie's father's sister Adelaide just told him that he's being way too strict, and that Elsie will respond just as well to a soft word of rebuke as to a stern one. He tells her to mind her own business. And then,

All that Adelaide had said was true; yet Elsie never complained, never blamed her father, even in her heart; but, in her deep humility, thought it was all because she was "so very naughty or careless;" and she was continually making resolutions to be "oh! _so_ careful always to do just right, and please dear papa, so that some day he might learn to love her."

But, alas! that hope was daily growing fainter and fainter; his cold and distant manner to her and his often repeated reproofs had so increased her natural timidity and sensitiveness that she was now very constrained in her approaches to him, and seldom ventured to move or speak in his presence; and he would not see that this timidity and embarrassment were the natural results of his treatment, but attributed it all to want of affection. He saw that she feared him, and to that feeling alone he gave credit for her uniform obedience to his commands, while he had no conception of the intense, but now almost despairing love for him that burned in that little heart, and made the young life one longing, earnest desire and effort to gain his affection.

This is so disturbing.

Hil, is there a reason you're putting yourself through this?

Well, I started it out of a sort of morbid curiosity. And now I kind of want to finish it, because it just keeps getting worse, and I just keep wondering what on earth this author will do next.

Last night I was fumbling with some fast food and the following exchange occurred.

Me: Hey there's a taco in here!

D: what?

Me: I just put my taco on top of your taco.

D: That's what she said... to her!

There is a magic spell for kitchen cleaning , right?

People don't really do it , do they?

sigh

Scourgify

Can you come do that to my whole house, Laga? I think I've procrastinated as long as I am able.

Alas, I do not have a wand.

Hil, according to wikipedia, the author of the Elsie books, Martha Finley, was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. I don't know what Presbyterianism was like in the 1800s (or, really, what it's like now). But maybe that had an affect on her perspective and writing.

Well, Elsie just spent two hours sitting silently next to her father as he read a book and ignored her. He was punishing her for setting free a rare bird that he's captured. She spent the two hours gazing at him, thinking about how handsome he is and despairing that he would never love her, would never take her upon his knee and caress her. Then he sends her to bed. She stands, waiting for a kiss goodnight, and he says that he won't kiss her, because she'd been naughty. She runs up to her room and breaks down in hysterics.

Yup, cruel father as disappointed God stand-in. When you free the birds you make Baby Jesus cry, and he won't love you anymore.