tinct of mimicry I take to be the humble
beginning from which dramatic art has sprung, and it appears in the
individual at a very early stage. Perhaps it is even expressed in the
first squalls of infancy, though this possibility has been overlooked
or obscured by philosophic pedantry. Now anent these squalls. Hegel
gravely declares that they indicate a revelation of the baby's exalted
nature (oh!), and are meant to inform the public that it feels itself
"permeated with the certitude" that it has a right to exact from the
external world the satisfaction of its needs. Michelet opines that the
squalls reveal the horror felt by the soul at being enslaved to nature.
Another writer regards them as an outburst of wrath on the part of the
baby at finding itself powerless against environing circumstances. Some
early theologians, on the other hand, pronounced squalling to be a proof
of innate wickedness; and this view strikes one as being much nearer the
mark. But none of these accounts are completely satisfactory. Innate
wickedness may supply the conception; it is the dramatic instinct that
suggests the means. Here is the real explanation of those yells which
embitter the life of a young father and drive the veteran into temporary
exile. It happens in this wise. The first aim of a baby--not yours,
madam; yours is well known to be an exception, but of other and common
babies--is to make itself as widely offensive as possible. The end,
indeed, is execrable, but the method is masterly. The baby has an _a
priori_ intuition that the note of the domestic cat is repulsive to the
ear of the human adult. Consequently, what does your baby do but betake
itself to a practical study of the caterwaul! After a few conscientious
rehearsals a creditable degree of perfection is usually reached, and a
series of excruciating performances are forthwith commenced, which last
with unbroken success until the stage arrives when correction becomes
possible. This process may check the child's taste for imitating the
lower animals in some of their less engaging peculiarities, but his
dramatic instincts will be diverted with a refreshing promptness to the
congenial subjects of parent or nurse.

No sooner is your son and heir invested with the full dignity of
knickerbockers than he begins to celebrate this rise in the social
scale by "playing at being papa." The author of "Vice Versa" has drawn
an amusing picture of the discomforts to papa which an exchange o