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Wilberforce (search for this): chapter 9
e said, there was found upon the burglar a set of false keys, not quite finished, by which he would certainly, within twenty-four hours, have had his mistress out of jail. Parent-Duchatelet found always the remains of modesty among the fallen women of Paris hospitals; and Mayhew, amid the London outcasts, says that he thinks better of human nature every day. Even among politicians, whom it is our American fashion to revile as the chief of sinners, there is less of evil than of good. In Wilberforce's Memoirs there is an account of his having once asked Mr. Pitt whether his long experience as Prime Minister had made him think well or ill of his fellow-men. Mr. Pitt answered, Well ; and his successor, Lord Melbourne, being asked the same question, answered, after a little reflection, M y opinion is the same as that of Mr. Pitt. Let us have faith. It was a part of the vigor of the old Hebrew tradition to rejoice when a man-child was born into the world; and the maturer strength of
red, must always be won at once into her arms. If it was dirty, she would have been glad to bathe it; if ill, to heal it. It would not have seemed to her anything worthy the name of love, to seek only those who were wholesome and clean. Like the young girl in Holmes's most touching poem, she would have claimed as her own the outcast child whom nurses and physicians had abandoned. ‘Take her, dread Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!’ No voice descended from above, But Avis answered, She is mine! When I think of the self-devotion which the human heart can contain — of those saintly souls that are in love with sorrow, and that yearn to shelter all weakness and all grief — it inspires an unspeakable confidence that there must also be an instinct of parentage beyond this human race, a heart of hearts, cor cordium. As we all crave something to protect, so we long to feel ourselves protected. We are all infants before the Infinite; and as I turned from that cot
aid more to me than would any Madonna of Raphael's, for his mother never kisses her child. I believe I have never passed over that road since then, never seen the house, never heard the names of its occupants. Their character, their history, their fate, are all unknown. But these two will always stand for me as disembodied types of humanity,--the Mother and the Child; they seem nearer to me than my immediate neighbors, yet they are as ideal and impersonal as the goddesses of Greece or as Plato's archetypal man. I know not the parentage of that child, whether black or white, native or foreign, rich or poor. It makes no difference. The presence of a baby equalizes all social conditions. On the floor of some Southern hut, scarcely so comfortable as a dog-kennel, I have seen a dusky woman look down upon her infant with such an expression of delight as painter never drew. No social culture can make a mother's face more than a mother's, as no wealth can make a nursery more than a
Leigh Hunt (search for this): chapter 9
dily among all the affairs of the elders. In its presence, formality vanishes the most oppressive ceremonial is a little relieved when s children enter. Their influence is pervasive and irresistible, like that of water, which adapts itself to any landscape,--always takes its place, welcome or unwelcome,--keeps its own level and seems always to have its natural and proper margin. Out of doors how children mingle with nature, and seem to begin just where birds and butterflies leave off! Leigh Hunt, with his delicate perceptions, paints this well: The voices of children seem as natural to the early morning as the voice of the birds. The suddenness, the lightness, the loudness, the sweet confusion, the sparkling gayety, seem alike in both. The sudden little jangle is now here and now there; and now a single voice calls to another, and the boy is off like the bird. So Heine, with deeper thoughtfulness, noticed the intimacy with the trees of the little wood-gatherer in the Hartz Moun
n the burglar a set of false keys, not quite finished, by which he would certainly, within twenty-four hours, have had his mistress out of jail. Parent-Duchatelet found always the remains of modesty among the fallen women of Paris hospitals; and Mayhew, amid the London outcasts, says that he thinks better of human nature every day. Even among politicians, whom it is our American fashion to revile as the chief of sinners, there is less of evil than of good. In Wilberforce's Memoirs there is an labor from the moment of his baby's birth; he scarcely sees it when awake, and yet it is with him all the time. Every stroke he strikes is for his child. New social aims, new moral motives, come vaguely up to him. The London costermonger told Mayhew that he thought every man would like his son or daughter to have a better start in the world than his own. After all, there is no tonic like the affections. Philosophers express wonder that the divine laws should give to some young girl, almost
ed by later discoveries. Unless your heart commands at least as long a range as your eye, it is not worth much. The dearest saint in my calendar never entered a railway car that she did not look round for a baby, which, when discovered, must always be won at once into her arms. If it was dirty, she would have been glad to bathe it; if ill, to heal it. It would not have seemed to her anything worthy the name of love, to seek only those who were wholesome and clean. Like the young girl in Holmes's most touching poem, she would have claimed as her own the outcast child whom nurses and physicians had abandoned. ‘Take her, dread Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!’ No voice descended from above, But Avis answered, She is mine! When I think of the self-devotion which the human heart can contain — of those saintly souls that are in love with sorrow, and that yearn to shelter all weakness and all grief — it inspires an unspeakable confidence that there must al
irds. The suddenness, the lightness, the loudness, the sweet confusion, the sparkling gayety, seem alike in both. The sudden little jangle is now here and now there; and now a single voice calls to another, and the boy is off like the bird. So Heine, with deeper thoughtfulness, noticed the intimacy with the trees of the little wood-gatherer in the Hartz Mountains; soon the child whistled like a linnet, and the other birds all answered him; then he disappeared in the thicket with his bare feet and his bundle of brushwood. Children, thought Heine, are younger than we, and can still remember the time when they were trees or birds, and can therefore understand and speak their language; but we are grown old, and have too many cares, and too much jurisprudence and bad poetry in our heads. But why go to literature for a recognition of what one may see by opening one's eyes? Before my window there is a pool, two rods square, that is haunted all winter by children,--clearing away the
December 25th (search for this): chapter 9
ke my real baby, only it was better than having no child at all! This crushing bereavement, this reluctant acceptance of a child by adoption, to fill the vacant heart,--how real and formidable is all this rehearsal of the tragedies of maturer years! I knew an instance in which the last impulse of ebbing life was such a gush of imaginary motherhood. A dear friend of mine, whose sweet charities prolong into a third generation the unbounded benevolence of old Isaac Hopper, used to go at Christmas-time with dolls and other gifts to the poor children on Randall's Island. Passing the bed of a little girl whom the physician pronounced to be unconscious and dying, the kind visitor insisted on putting a doll into her arms. Instantly the eyes of the little invalid opened, and she pressed the gift eagerly to her heart, murmuring over it and caressing it. The matron afterwards wrote that the child died within two hours, wearing a happy face, and still clinging to her newfound treasure.
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