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and into the world is brought no living child but art 

 abortion. 



It is vain to rebel against destiny, nevertheless a full 

 enquiry begins into the causes of this miscarriage. It is 

 discovered that a month before the mother slipped and 

 fell, or a week ago she struck against the corner of the 

 bedstead, or the day preceding the disaster she went 

 to buy some flannels for the child and coming home 

 walked upstairs to the third storey. 



Great is the grief and numerous the lamentations of 

 grandfather and grandmother and the father himself, but 

 in all their attempts at consolation one hears a note of 

 protest almost of reproach, against the mother, who as 

 it were lacked the needful zeal in the family cause; and 

 the poor woman bears this meekly, thinking only of how 

 she may escape the like mischance next time. How care- 

 less was I, she thinks, not to have guarded properly 

 my little Victor! The future conqueror! Oh certainly he 

 would have conquered everybody and everything had 

 he but been born ! 



It is remarkable that the first child of an unhealthy 

 father is almost always still born. But passing over 

 this misfortune we reach at length a second event. 



Two months before the expected end the sick mother 

 is sent to bed and lies there, mostly on her back be- 

 cause it is a medical dogma that without such precau- 

 tions a first miscarriage is likely to be followed by a 

 second. And so at length after a prolonged term of re- 

 cumbent suffering a living child appears. Everybody 

 expects the little stranger to come among them a phe- 

 nomenon of health and vigour; and indeed it is more or 

 less a wonderful creature which >sees,the light, only not 

 wonderful in the desired sense: the infant is restless 

 and feeble and sickly, a harbinger of suffering and sor- 

 row rather than a promise of joy. The poor mother 

 lays it to her breasts, presses it to her heart; but the 

 little weakling yields but faint response. One week passes,., 

 two weeks pass - - weeks both of sleepless anxiety 



