THE MODEL BABY.
It is the image of its father, unless it is the very picture of its mother. It is the best-tempered little thing in the world, never crying but in the middle of the night, or screaming but when it is being washed. It is astonishing how quiet it is whilst feeding. It understands everything, and proves its love for learning by tearing the leaves out of every book, and grasping with both hands at the engravings. It is the cleverest child that was ever born, and says “papa,” or something very like it, when scarcely a month old. It takes early to pulling whiskers, preferring those of strangers. It has only one complaint, and that is the wind; but it is frequently troubled with it. It is the most wonderful child that was ever seen, and would swallow both its tiny fists if it was not for a habit of choking. It dislikes leaving home, rarely stopping on a visit longer than a day. It has a strange hostility for its nurse’s cap and nose, which it will clutch and hold with savage tenacity if in the least offended. It is never happy but in its mother’s arms, especially if it is being nursed by a gentleman. It prefers the floor to the cradle, which it never stops in longer than it can help. It is very playful, delighting in pulling the table-cloth off, or knocking the china ornaments off the mantelpiece, or upsetting its food on somebody’s lap. It invents a new language of its own almost before it can speak, which is perfectly intelligible to its parents, but Greek to every one else. It is not fond of public entertainments, invariably crying before it has been at one five minutes. It dislikes treachery in any shape, and repels the spoonful of sugar if it fancies there is a powder of the bottom of it. Medicine is its greatest horror, next to cold water. It has no particular love for dress, generally tearing to pieces any handsome piece of finery, lace especially, as soon as it is put on. It inquires deeply into everything, and is very penetrating in the construction of a drum, the economy of a work-box, or the anatomy of a doll, which it likes all the better without any head or arms. It has an intuitive hatred of a doctor, and fights with its legs and hands and first teeth against his endearments. It has a most extraordinary taste for colours, imbibing them greedily in every shape, more especially from the wooden tenants of Noah’s Ark, which are to be found in mouth of every baby. In fact, there never was a child like it, and the Model Baby proves this by surviving the thousands-and-one experiments of rival grannies and mothers-in-law, and outliving, to the athletic age of kilts and bare legs, the villainous compounds of Godfrey and Dalby, and the whole poison-chest of Elixirs, Carminatives, and Cordials, which babies are physically heirs to.
THE BEAUTY OF A BLUSH.
Goethe was in company with a mother and daughter, when the latter, being reproved for something, blushed and burst into tears. He said, - “How beautiful your reproach has made your daughter! That crimson hue and those silvery tears become her much better than any ornament of gold or pearls; these may be hung on the neck of any woman, but those are never seen disconnected with the moral purity. A full-blown rose, besprinkled with purest dew, is not so beautiful as this child blushing beneath her parent’s displeasure, and shedding tears of sorrow for her fault….