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KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
161 

ANOTHER CHAPTER ON LITTLE CHILDREN. 
BY THE AUTHOR OF “A CUP oF TRA.’* 

HE Youn of most animals are 
interesting. But, for interest- 
ing both eye and heart, there 
1S NOTHING IN THIS WORLD 
equal to a _ rosy, giggling, 
} curly-headed little child, ar- 
rived at that age when the 
mind begins to bud forth in accents of 
wonder and curiosity. There are some 
people in the world, who “can’t bear 
children.” Whenever my reader meets with 
one of these child-haters, he may “write 
him down” as “ wanting.” His heart is out 
of tune, as certainly as his eye is covered 
with the mist of surliness and ill-nature. 
The greatest men of antiquity (generally 
speaking) have been fond of children. Some 
of the master-spirits of modern times are 
equally so. OURSELF for instance (!) WE 
positively doat upon children; and a late 
particular friend of ours once saw a vener- 
able preacher, whom he pronounced to be 
the first orator he ever heard—rolling on the 
carpet of his study, with some of his 
children performing similar evolutions 
around him. Should the reader, therefore, 
happen to be a child-hater, he will have the 
politeness not toread this essay. He will 
assuredly be unable to sympathise with any 
of its sentiments, and he will ridicule a 
picture of infantine scenes. 
According to the motherly custom which 
has descended from the days of Methuselah 
to the present most auspicious period, we are 
bound to admire every lady’s “ first- 
born” when we have the happiness of 
beholding it perched on her arm, and incased 
in a tube of long clothes. ‘* What an 
exquisite eye! What a sweet little nose! 
What a darling little chin! What a sweet, 
—what a beautiful baby !” 
Now this is nothing but complimentary 
mummery. ‘The babe has scarcely the look 
of actual existence as yet; and we might as 
well prate about the breathing graces of a 
clay model. At this age, the ‘‘babe’’ is 
interesting—but nothing like beautiful. A 
nose, shaped like the knuckle-bone of a 
finger—pea-sized eyes winking against the 
light—a chubby head, with a crown like a 
warming-pan—and a round mouth, resem- 
bling the glass peep-hole toa puppet show — 
have nothing to do with “beauty.” No 
allusion has been made to the com- 
pleaion, which, as the most accomplished 
nurse must allow, at this time, very much 
resembles that of a tallow “dip.” Neverthe- 
less, as before observed, the little creature 
is interesting ; and Mamma is perfectly right 


* See Volume III., page 49. 
Vor. IV.—1i1, 

in dandling it on her arm, and being 
delighted to receive the baby-compliments of 
her friends, who, of course, never fail to 
find considerable likeness between its chin 
and that of the sire And as for the eyes, 
“there is the mother all over in them.” 
Byron has an exquisite passage respecting 
the mother and her infant :— 
The wife 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look, 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook _ 
No pain, and small suspense—a joy perceives 
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook 
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves. 
The age when a child is both interesting 
and beautiful, is mostly between three and 
four. It is now that the miniature of life 
begins to develop a definite trace of feature 
and of grace—that the eye is glassed with 
the young beam of intellect ; and that the 
tongue, like a rapid stream, prattles away in 
voluble but indistinct utterance. Yonder, 
on a sunny slope, is a curly-pated urchin, 
frolicking about in the glittering grass—now 
chasing a butterfly, and now his own 
shadow ; blowing a “ pussy-cat” in the air, 
and then lying on the grass, to eye the 
heavens, and wishing for a pleasant ride 
on the back of those dolphin-figured clouds! 
Let us call the chubby rogue to us, and 
survey his face and form.* 
Well, here he is, dressed in a Lilliputian 
surtout, which is girt with a belt, and looks 
quite warlike. The collar is open at the 
neck ; and reveals the unconscious swell of a 
bosom, pure as the “unsunned snow.” 
What juvenile nobleness—what an innocent 
hardihood there is on that white brow, 
where the wild ringlets dance about in 
clusters, like grape-bunches on a windy day! 
Upon its sleek surface, the veins may be 
traced meandering along their course, and 
carrying, in their silky tubes, blood, fresh 
and vigorous as joy. Who shall describe that 
laughing pair of eyes? There isin them 
a glitter of pleasure and purity—a soft, con- 
fiding expression, rolling across their azure 
orbs—that no pen can picture. Who shall 
define their flash of astonishment, when the 
glories of Nature first open on their view ? 
their timid glance of awe, when the ocean 
first heaves its myriad hillocks before them’? 
How truly beautiful are the lips of chil- 
dren! A host of smiles seems nestled there; 
and when they expand, and disclose the 
ivory array just peeping up behind them— 
there is something almost beyond expression 
playing around them. But if a stranger can 
find a pleasure in looking on the little por- 

* I am of course treating of children dressed 
as they ought to be dressed. I speak not of the 
deformities of modern times—those abortive. 
“apologies” for human figures. 
‘ M 
