The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering-galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity.

Richter contrasts the apparent privacy of family life with its long public afterlife. A father’s everyday speech—advice, praise, contempt, tenderness—may seem to vanish within the walls of the home, yet it reverberates through the children who carry it forward in character and conduct. The “whispering-gallery” image suggests acoustic inevitability: what is murmured at one end is transmitted and amplified at the other. The quote thus elevates parental language into a moral and historical force, implying that posterity judges not only public deeds but also the formative, unseen speech that shapes the next generation.