The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-07-28
Sweet Beginnings.

A babe IN the house is well-spring of
pleasure, Mr.. Upper told us some years
since; and If he never said another word
we wished to hear again, that one was
true enough to be engraved upon Jewel
to sparkle con the stretched foretinger
OF all time" as every one knows that
haS a babe in the house.
Who is there that can bring the same
fullness of innocent and uHsetish light
and life into house when there is no baby
there: There may be young people by
the score, with singing and laughing,
running and dancing; but it is all in the
way OF their own enjoyment, and, even if
Others are allowed To share it, it lends
none of that wide sense of disinterested
pleasure that baby brings, where
everything bends to his royal pleasure
and needs, and where every ones love is
summer heaven under which his little
soul expands, and which grows more in
tense day by day with that little souls
eXpanding-with the first hearty laugh,
the first artlculate syllable and triumph
OF speech, the sweet cooling cries, the
pattering feet, the little mischiefs, the
long frolics, the first tune that is turned,
the first amazing plunge into the prob
lens of life and questions. What
getting, what novel.reading, what
dancing or boating or driving, what
flirting or croqueting, gives any such
pleasure as days and weeks of life with
this little new soul? What lovers kiss
was ever any sweeter than the kisses
that fall and nestle in these dimples?
What picture, what painting, can ever
equal the beauty Of any baby evw born
and loved? Where can one live in such
a region of perpetual play going as its
mlmicries make? Where are we to have
any such exciting drama as that of this
opening intellect and developing body,
every muscle of the one on Il spring,
every object atfording such large Keyed,
grave wonder to the other? What
scene will ever be so breathless as the
first walk? what prima donna's jewel
song will have for US the honeyed sweet
ness Of the first lisping sentence? And
then what eagerness OF acquisition, to
which the stars in the skies seem Just as
attainable as the rose in the dish, comes
in for side show! what profound medita-
lions, whose babbling result is SO un-
movable that the Sphinx never read
obscurer riddle! and what heavenly
smiles in what placid dreams, so that we
go down on our knees before the old SUI
perstitlon and are sure that, if the angels
never whispered to any other baby in
his sleep, they are cert ainly whispering
TO this one:
Slumbers-such sweet angel seemings
That we'd ever have such dreamings,
TIL from sleep we see thee breaking,
And would always have thee waking
1t does not occur to US to ponder what
warrant this baby has for all his excel
lence, and that, being our child, he
should partake of our imperfection. He is
as independent of US as star in it's glory;
he is himself, pure and simple, as much
as if it were the first baby of the universe;
what is good in us he has he can in
herit nothing evil, only We are once in a
while amazed at ourselves to think we
dare call the little wonder ours. And if
there will intrude upon US now and then
a shivering fear lest it be beyond our
deserts TO keep this treasure, lest the
thing be too fine for earth, lest any of
the plaques that infest the kingdom of
childhood show their dark faces by his
little crib, we aroynt it and put it away
as a dark and evil ghost stealing upon
the banquet. We may die, and all the
world may die, but not this sweet piece
of immortality in which the whole race
our light would go out forever
WHAT do they do, we ask, in houses
where there is no baby? what happiness
DO they have worth the name? to what
hope do they look forward, without this
bright world at command, into which
every day we penetrate farther? How
dreary it must be to them to open their
eyes in the morning with no baby lying
there to greet them with rosy smiles and
ch;rruping cries, with no Cupid to splash
in his bath, no little mouth to fill, eager
as birds, no delicious little flesh to
lavish kisses on, no breath to breathe on
one, sweeter than the breath of roses is,
no dear little heart to fill with Joy, no
long, tired day of delight to look for
ward to! ...
1t is tyrant, though, this baby, for
all. His rod is on our necks. But such
glad, gay, loving little tyrant, with his
great, sweet, wet kisses, his smiles like
breaking sunshine, and his griefs, in
which his eyes are nothing but two great
beautiful tears themselves, that our
worst enemy would be our liberator.
May his shadow never be less! May he
live thousand years! May he reign
forever, in short, in all our hearts and
all our homes! And may we all thank
Heaven that, wonderful, miraculous,
impossible as it now seems, yet all of
us sprang from just such sweet begin
nings!--Harper's Bazar. ..#.
Little Dot was displeased with papa
and mamma, and when she came to that
part of her evening nrayer that God