h husks and, stony
cases, provides, for the human plant, the mother's breast and the
father's house. The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny
beseeching weakness is compensated perfectly by the happy patronizing
look of the mother, who is a sort of high reposing Providence toward it.
Welcome to the parents the puny straggler, strong in his weakness, his
little arms more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with
persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected
lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the
sobbing child,--the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his
vexation,--soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous
compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all
nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all
knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His
flesh is angels' flesh, all alive. "Infancy," said Coleridge, "presents
body and spirit in unity: the body is all animated." All day, between
his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house, sputters, and
spurs, and puts on his faces of importance; and when he fasts, the
little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before him. By lamp-light
he delights in shadows on the wall; by daylight, in yellow and scarlet.
Carry him out of doors,--he is overpowered by the light and the extent
of natural objects, and is silent. Then presently begins his use of his
fingers, and he studies power, the lesson of his race. First it appears
in no great harm, in architectural tastes. Out of blocks, thread-spools,
cards, and checkers, he will build his pyramid with the gravity of
Palladio. With an acoustic apparatus of whistle and rattle, he explores
the laws of sound. But chiefly, like his senior countrymen, the young
American studies new and speedier modes of transportation. Mistrusting
the cunning of his small legs, he wishes to ride on the necks and
shoulders of all flesh. The small enchanter nothing can withstand, no
seniority of age, no gravity of character; uncles, aunts, grandsires,
grandams, fall an easy prey: he conforms to nobody, all conform to
him; all caper and make mouths, and babble, and chirrup to him. On the
strongest shoulders he rides, and pulls the hair of laurelled heads.

* * * * *

=_201._= MAN MUST WORK IN HARMONY WITH PRINCIPLES.

Civilization depends on morality. Everything