s future arrange laurels for a little crown for your
own brows.

Human weakness, no doubt; but what matter, provided the sentiment that
gives birth to this weakness is the strongest and purest of all? What
matter if a limpid stream springs up between two paving stones? Are
we to be blamed for being generous out of egotism, and for devoting
ourselves to others for reasons of personal enjoyment?

Thus, in the father, vanity is the leading string. Say to any father:
"Good heavens! how like you he is!" The poor man may hesitate at saying
yes, but I defy him not to smile. He will say, "Perhaps.... Do you think
so?... Well, perhaps so, side face."

And do not you be mistaken; if he does so, it is that you may reply in
astonishment: "Why, the child is your very image."

He is pleased, and that is easily explained; for is not this likeness
a visible tie between him and his work? Is it not his signature, his
trade-mark, his title-deed, and, as it were, the sanction of his rights?

To this physical resemblance there soon succeeds a moral likeness,
charming in quite another way. You are moved to tears when you recognize
the first efforts of this little intelligence to grasp your ideas.
Without check or examination it accepts and feeds on them. By degrees
the child shares your tastes, your habits, your ways. He assumes a deep
voice to be like papa, asks for your braces, sighs before your boots,
and sits down with admiration on your hat. He protects his mamma when he
goes out with her, and scolds the dog, although he is very much afraid
of him; all to be like papa. Have you caught him at meals with his large
observant eyes fixed on you, studying your face with open mouth
and spoon in hand, and imitating his model with an expression of
astonishment and respect. Listen to his long gossips, wandering as his
little brain; does he not say:

"When I am big like papa I shall have a moustache and a stick like him,
and I shall not be afraid in the dark, because it is silly to be afraid
in the dark when you are big, and I shall say 'damn it,' for I shall
then be grown up."

"Baby, what did you say, sir?"

"I said just as papa does."

What would you? He is a faithful mirror. You are for him an ideal,
a model, the type of all that is great and strong, handsome and
intelligent.

Often he makes mistakes, the little dear, but his error is all the more
delicious in its sincerity, and you feel all the more unworthy of such
frank admirat