nd turn a deaf ear to their innocent
caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater of
children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually
engaging,--if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about
in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure
to be found for sending them out of the room: they are too noisy or
boisterous, or Mr. ---- does not like children. With one or other of
these forks the arrow is sure to hit you.

I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their
brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be
called upon to _love_ them, where I see no occasion,--to love a whole
family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,--to love all
the pretty dears, because children are so engaging.

I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love my dog:" that is not always
so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease
you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing,--any
inanimate substance, as a keep-sake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or
the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long
absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and any thing
that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and
apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a
real character and an essential being of themselves: they are amiable
or unamiable _per se_; I must love or hate them as I see cause for
either 'in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to
admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and
to be loved or hated accordingly: they stand with me upon their own
stock, as much as men and women do. O! but you will say, sure it is
an attractive age,--there is something in the tender years of infancy
that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice
about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature,
not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear them; but the
prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it
should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another
in glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest.--I was
always rather squeamish in my women and children.

But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity
at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits,
and some kind of in