d
disinterestedness are united together, and man in his entirety appears in
the papa.

It is on the day which the child becomes a mirror in which you recognize
your features, that the heart is moved and awakens. Existence becomes
duplicated, you are no longer one, but one and a half; you feel your
importance increase, and, in the future of the little creature who
belongs to you, you reconstruct your own past; you resuscitate, and are
born again in him. You say to yourself: "I will spare him such and such a
vexation which I had to suffer, I will clear from his path such and such
a stone over which I stumbled, I will make him happy, and he shall owe
all to me; he shall be, thanks to me, full of talents and attractions."
You give him, in advance, all that you did not get yourself, and in his
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,