The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1877-09-01
SWEET

of all time" as evecy one knows that has
a babe in the house.
Who is there that can bring the same
fullness of innocent and unseIfsh light
and life Tito a house enthere 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 il
others are allowed to share it, it lends
none of that wide sense of disinterested
pleasure that a baby brings, where
everything bends to his royal pleasure
and needs, and where every ones love is
q summer haven 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 articulate syllable and triumph
of speech, the sweet cooling cries, the
pattering feet, the little smischiefs, the
long f~rolics, the first tune that is turned,
the first amazing plunge into the prob
lens OF life and questions. What money
gettings, what novel reading, what dane
ing or beating 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 ever born and
loved? Where can n live in such a
region of perpetual play-going as its MIN
icries make? Where are we to have any
such exciting drama as that of this open
ing intellect and developing body, every
muscle of the one on a spring, every OBJ
ject affording such large-eyed, grave won
der 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 sweetness of the first lisp
ing 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 meditations, whose babbling
result is so unknowable 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 superstition, and are sure that,
if the angels never whispered to any other
baby in his sleep, they are certainly
whispering to this one:
slumbers-such 9eet angel seemings
That we'd ever have such dreamings,
fill from sleep we see thee breaking,
And would always have thee waking!
It does not occur 10 lis to ponder what
warrant this baby has for all his excel
lence, and that, being u child, he
should partake Of our imperfections. He
is as Independent of us as g@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 inherit 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 should 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 has just come to flower, and with
whom IL light would go out forever.
What do they do, we ask, in houses
where there is ne baby? What E:ppi-
ness 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
chirruping cries, with no Cupids to plash
in his bath, no little mouth to fill, eager
as a birds, no delicious little flesh to
lavish kisses on, no breath to breathe on
sweeter than the breath of roses is,
no dear little heart to fill with joys no
long, tired day of delight to look for
ward to!
Tits a tyrant, though, this baby, for all
His rod is on our necks. But such a glad.
ray, loving little tyrant, with his great.
sweet, wet kisses, his smiles like breaking
sunshine, and his griefs, in which his
ayes are nothing but two great beautiful
tears themselves, that our worst enemy
would be our liberator. May his sha-
low be less! May he live a thou
.and years! May he reign forever, i n
hort. in all eur hearts and all our bones!
And may weall thank Heaven that, won
lerfuI, miraculous, impossible, as it now
seems, vet all of us sprang from such
'weet beginnings.-Hdrper Bazar. = |
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