Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1859-06-04
OUR BABY.

He is a very, very Young one, and in him is
fulfilled that saving of Job-"we are but OF yes-
te-day and know nothing" He cannot talk
he has never been known to coo-his eyes do
not yet work perfectly as pair, but each on its
own hook sometimes, so that we have caught
him looking two ways at once in evident won
derment and dstraction--plainly he has not
yet settled his new latitude and longitude-he
sucks his thumb and thinks there is milk in it,
though he don't fairly know milk from water,
and actually lived for several DAYS on sweeten-
ed water, without suspicion of the thin and
vapid cheat practised on him-he puts his fn-
gers into his own eye from sheer ignorance of
corporeal dynamics, and such as persons irving
to cut their own hair before glass, can't hit
the spot, and are almost as likely to shingle
their noses their locks-where he is put,
there he lies, he is so little and weak-there is
mighty little hair on the top Of his head, in the
place where the hair ought to grow-nurse is
ready to take her oath that he laughs but the
more skeptcal of us are convinced that his face
spreads and wrinkles smle-like, from purely
internal causes, that is to say, from wind--in
deed he makes innumerable motions of the face,
which in adults would mean something, and
might be interpreted, but in him clearly they
mean nothing, except that his face is eminently
india -rubbery and self-active, going on from one
distortion to another leach one more original
and inpooe;ble than its predecessor,) a good
deal as some folks say the human will operates,
Tor can operate,) viz: from no motive or i'm
pulse at all-he hasn't advanced so far vet as to
discover that night is the time for sleep cnurse
thinks that is one of his main failings)-and we
lack proof land rest assured, dear friends, we
have sought for it, that he could tell his father
from any other man to save his life.
OF course, then, he is in an exceedingly prim-
tive and unsuggestive condition. Don't at all
correspond with VIM. Wadsworlh's magnilo-
quent talk about babies:
"Our birth is but sleep and forgetting;
The soul that rises in US, our life's Star,
Has had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come"
It's all lie. We have searched for "cloud
Of glory" trailing" to our baby, and its not
there. And he came sin entire forgetfulness"
and "utter nakedness"-in fact the description
don't agree any,chere. The baby is all extreme
| ly nascent concern in body, soul and estate
| His body is scarcely more than n tender pulp
his soul is pulp too for ought we know through
any decisive signs he has made (though we
have strong hopes of it.) And as to his tenn
poral estate, few changes of clothes, limited
bottle and small benediction daily from the
milkman, make the whole sum and glory of it.
And yet our baby is great affair We are
almost ashamed to own, especially before ignor-
ant and unsympathetic bachelors, that such a
feeble and iniinitesmal thing is more to us than
one more rat in the house; but the truth is that
from some cause our new boy proyokes us to a
more bustlng hospitality and more affection
ate nervousness, than the arrival Of some adult
dignitary at our threshold to make long stay
with us, would-we feel guilty and mean this
very minute for having compared him to a rat
tender censures assa us inwardly, and we have
been asked several times since we made it
"Supposing he should die pretty soon, and be-
fore old enough to accept your contrition be-
cause you've spoken of him in the same pas
sage with rat how would you feel then ?'-
The youth 1--WE rise Spontaneously to that more
exalted term in semi-expiation of that vile raj
passage,) draws us into the room where he is
good many times day, and has tried to do il
few times in the night 1t has come to be Q
quite spicy entertainment for us to look wher
he is supposed to be asleep and to find his two
blue eyes all open under the blanket-we have
flown to the lounge on several occasions to de
liver him from the heap of clothes in which w
have listened to hear him from her arms on thu
floor in the other room-in truth ''our fears de-
not make us cowards," and we have to stanl
guard all the while over the weakling.
! Anciently we thought it folly to search 70,
the image of anybody in young baby's face
but we catch ourselves every day looking fol