Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1901-10-17
ON CUTENESS.


in the actions of the young Of all the
animal kingdom, which expresses
the ideal of that absolute indepen-
denee so much sought after by man,
after he has reached the age of rea-
son, but which he never seems toat-
tain. In his swaddling clothes, the
immature bit of the animal creation
is utterly irresponsible for his acts,
positively and even hilariously in
consequential in his movements
hence, we find him cute. y
Cuteness is the only word quail
fed TO express the multifarious idi-
Osyncrasies of organic atoms, wheth-
er they be of the species man, beast,
bird, fish or insect. Even an infant,
wiggling worm possesses a charm
which brings grave and reverend
scientists down on their marrow
bones to inspect and admire. In
my own salad days, long before the
tender, yellowish white cotyledons
of my embryotic days and become
tinged with the greenness of her
aided maturity, it was constant
pleasure to me to play with baby
mud turtles. So awkwardly cute
and so villainously, beautifully fun
ny they were, that | could not resist
practising cruelties upon them to
see them squirm, like the fond moth
er who was so transported by the
cuteness of her darling babe that
she hugged it to death. Infantile
crabs, Holsters and CLAIMS were so
irresistibly attractive to me that
often imperiled my hereafter by de-
serting Sunday school to hunt them
and gioat over their very quintes-
scnce of cuteness.
1t is not on account of their beau
ty that we admire young things, for
they have none; they are merely
raw, uncouth prototypes of perfect
maturity; nor is any reason to be
found in their abiect, helpless and
tender weakness, for there is not an
infantile animal that will not defend
itself. The microscopic baby clam
will shut its shell down hard on an
intinitcsimal intruding hair, and
transparent, newly hatched mosqui-
to will bend up its feeble proboscis
in the vain effort to revengefully
puncture the skin of the inimical
hand raised to strike it down. Par
tridges just out of the shell will lie
down on their backs and hold con-
cealing leaf over them to hide away
from an approaching enemy a
.threadlike worm will exude slippe-
riness to wiggle out of ones grasp.
a baby elephant family trumpets its
anger, and the small human kind
roars and yells until the disturber
of its peace takes alarm and fees i'm
alright. Everything young in ma
ture possesses some weapon of de-
fence peculiar 10 its kind, and it is
therefore proportionately strong as
the mature of its species.
In fact, cuteness is as cuteness
does: this is the whole gospel of in
fantile comicality in an epigram.
Did you ever see a flock OF children.
hundreds of them, of different and
assorted sizes, come tumbling out of
the schoolhouse of a great city? Per-
haps, and ifso, the buzzing of a swarm
of bees who cannot locate their queen
is but faint shadow Hopping,
skipping, dancing, shouting, young,
ruddy and also pale-faced rascals,
forgetting all about the pedagogical
atmosphere they have just quilted
They are the little men of the nation,
talk marbles, discuss football, argue,
dispute, quarrel and fight. Some
times they tear one another's s cloth
ingand dootherreprehensiblet things,
but, looking at the small, indepen-
dent bipeds from a distant corner,
they possess the cuteness in their
performances that drives ones :
thoughts far from business, politics
and worry. 1t has often been a de
light to wickedly indulge in the gam
BILE of pitch penny. and deliber-
ately lose to the immature, embryot-
ic doctors, lawyers, clergymen and
statesmen. just to enjoy their fran
tic delight and extraordinary ges-
lures at beating grown man. Say,
mister, come around again tomorrow
afternoon and we II give you a chance
to win your money back. Then
they would nudge one another and
explode with laughter at the very
idea OF such a thing being Liable to
happen. The little cheats-I knew
they were conspiring to beat me.
but l didn't care. Their very cute
hess so entranced me that l would
willingly have goaded them intorob-
bing a bank if / had thought they
would enjoy il.
Then the little girls under like cir
cumstances, all hippity, hopping,
with their little slim legs nearly al