78 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



weight of prize cabbages, from the dizzy altitude of the galleries, is dangerous and 

 very reprehensible. Now, night before last, at the Academy of Music, just after 



Signorina had finished that exquisite melody, " The Last Rose of Summer,* 



one of these floral pile-drivers came cleaving down through the atmosphere of 

 applause, and if she hadn't deployed suddenly to the right, it would have driven 

 her into the floor like a shingle-nail. Of course that bouquet was well meant ; but 

 how would you like to have been the target .' A sincere compliment is always 

 grateful to a lady, so long as you don't try to knock her down with it. 



"Young Mother." — And so you think a baby is a thing of beauty and a joy 

 forever 1 Well, the idea is pleasing, but not original ; every cow thinks the same 

 of its own calf. Perhaps the cow may not think it so elegantly, but still she thinks 

 it nevertheless. I honor the cow for it. We all honor this touching maternal 

 instinct wherever we find it, be it in the home of luxury or in the humble cow-shed. 

 But really, madam, when I come to examine the matter in all its bearings, I find 

 that the correctness of your assertion does not assert itself in all cases. A soiled 

 baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing erf 

 beauty ; and inasmuch as babyhood spans but three short years, no baby is compe- 

 tent to be a joy " forever." It pains me thus to demolish two-thirds of your pretty 

 sentiment in a single sentence ; but the position I hold in this chair requires that I 

 shall not permit you to deceive and mislead the public with your plausible figures 

 of speech. I know a female baby, aged eighteen months, in this city, which cannot 

 hold out as a "joy" twenty-four hours on a stretch, let alone "forever." And it 

 possesses some of the most remarkable eccentricities of character and appetite that 

 have ever fallen under my notice. I will set down here a statement of this infant's 

 operations (conceived, planned, and carried out by itself, and without suggestion 

 or assistance from its mother or any one else), during a single day ; and what I 

 shall say can be substantiated by the sworn testimony of witnesses. 



It commenced by eating one dozen large blue-mass pills, box and all; then it 

 fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a blue and purple knot on its forehead, 

 after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshment and amusement. It found 

 a' glass trinket ornamented with brass-work — smashed up and ate the glass, and 

 then swallowed the brass. Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, and 



