selves classed as among one of the trials
which I select as the title of 'Our Article.'

SOME OF THE AGGRAVATIONS OF LIVING.

Two thirds of life in the aggregate are made up of aggravations. They
begin with our beginning, and only cease with our ending; perhaps, if
good Calvinists speak the truth, not even then, for, according to their
belief, the souls in torment look always upon the blessed in heaven, and
this surely is the most horrible species of aggravation ever devised by
man or fiend.

From the time when the air first fills the lungs and the infant screams
at the new sensation, to the day when fingers press down the resisting
lids and straighten the stiffening limbs, we are forced to meet and to
bear all manner of aggravations in nine tenths of our daily life.

Has it ever occurred to any of you what an amount of unnecessary
suffering an infant endures, and have you ever watched the operations it
undergoes daily, with reference to the confirming of this fact? If not,
an inexhaustible field of inquiry lies open before you, and after a
week's observation of bandages rolled till the flesh actually
squeaks--of pins stuck in and left, where you know they will prick--of
smotherings in blankets and garrotings with bibs--of trottings for the
wind and poundings for the stomach ache--of wakings up to show to
visitors, and puttings to sleep when sleep is at the other end of the
land of Nod, and will not be induced to come under any circumstances--of
rockings and tossings--of boiling catnip tea and smooth horrible castor
oil poured down the unsuspecting throat--after a week of such
observations, I say, you will decide with me that the baby's life is
only a series of aggravations, and feel astonished the bills of infant
mortality do not double and treble.

As years round out the little life, the hands, reaching out to the tree
of knowledge, find themselves pushed back on all sides. The dearest
wishes are made light of, the most earnest desires slighted, the most
sacred thoughts ridiculed, till one marvels that men can grow up
anything but devils. In the path where Gail Hamilton's feet have trod I
need not follow, for she has told us what these 'Happiest Days' are, in
better words than my pen can find. It warmed my heart as I read her
protest against the platitudes concerning childhood and its various
imagined delights. Mentally I shook hands, for she expressed my ideas so
fully, that the notes I had long ago jotted dow