Wheeling times and advertiser. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1839-1849, 1843-03-07
A CHAPTER ON C9ILDuODD

A CHAP TER On CHILDHOOD.
There IN the world some very sane
ana sensible persons who appear most
renctant TO acknowledge that they were
not always 80. They blush as il they
were chui gcd with some disgracelul dc
iIDquency when you remind them they
were once children, and as childish as
othsrs ct the same years. They are SO
completely wrapped up in the sober
Siaidness aud diguificd self conseque .ce
oi d iuIt age, thai they have almost for
gotten this undeniab Z fact themselves,
aud they arc most deep concerned that
no one else should remember il. L.o3k
at item! They are grave serious, thopht
iul men with iurrowed brows, and
paIe, anxious faces, every feature o.
"h'ch' sharp, tense aud angular, is the
lnd"S ot close application AMI delermin
cd resolve. And Is II poSslb that once
upon time they were chubby checked
urchins,no higher than the taole-romp
ING aud laughing all day long-deliaht
ing only in fun and fro 'ic-the merry
plague OF over fond mammas and over
precise maiden auntsS they re clever,
money getting men OF business, toilng
morning, noon aud night, TO 'buy and
sell, and get galn'-wise TO calculate
good profits and effect desirable invest
ments, that they shall die worth half n
million And it is 10 be credited that
forty years ego they did not know a
smiling FRO Il guinea, nor care straw
tor either; and that they would have vi
ven all the wea tn in the world for a
plum cake or whipping top, game at
bIln tman's buff, or rOmp in the hay
he'dE They are regular, sed tie, and
seeming M least, religious men, most
scruPulously correct in all the exteriors
OF " virtuous life; never forgetting that
they have II high character TO MAINTAIN
never neglc cling, III all events, what
others think 10 be their duty; the very
PINK OF proprlcty, with whom nobody
hnds fault, whom every body praises,
and who never seems to slip, To stumble
or 60 wrong; and It is TO be supposed
that tn y were, or will acknowledge
themselves 20 have been, just common
children-
"Curly.hended and good for n,hinge,
And notwithstanding mon keys rom their birth"
the dominIc's spectacles, and set his wig
on fire, and we're kept in, and fined and
logged just as often as any Of their CON
peers? They are men Of letters and sci
ence, who write half the alphabet after
their names, with 'loadS of learned ium
Der in their heads and loads of lea rned
lumber, the progeny of their prolific
brain and pen, on the grooming shelves
of The Row and surely It cannot be that
there was time when they knew moth
ing, and cared nothing for knowledge;
when they coulu not comprehend an in
tellectual abstraction, or unravei a vicl
Gus syllogism, when Jack the Giant. xii
Ter and rom ickathrIlt' were their ia
vorite rcading-Gor whose precious pa
yes, however, they had but little respect
when patch was wanted for their pa
per kile,or an a idition was voted for It's
almost interminabletail? They are men
ofiignily, rank and station, familiar
with al he 'pomp nd circumstance Of
civic dlStinction-who dine with baro
nets, and derman, and NJ P's--who
would not for their lives 90 out of the
magic circle which pride or the absurd
customs of high society have drawn a
round chem, ard TO whom the profdHum
rHlgHs (all, in fact, who do not belong
TO their own set,i arc as 'heatheu men
and republicans and it IS not likely that
they should remember the low lived c
quality OF the vi lage school-tbe days
when then knew no difference between
the son Of the squire and the son Of the
sexton, when they read from the same
book and set at the same desk, and Join
ed in the same Doiste rous gambols with
the children Of binds and 'un washed ar.
lilicers,' nav, when pretty Mary Morri-
son (who is now the cober's wife, as she
was then The taiior's daughter)was their
especial fayorite-the cynosure Of their
eyes and hcarts--lor more lovely in
in their childish apprehension, and far
dearer to their unsoPhisticated affections,
than all the infant aristocrats who hon
ored their birth days Halls Sc .
Isck remains Of the Rep II II T0,Ior