No need for all the thought and care to be only for one. Do not,

whenever poor Edwin wants you to come out, answer indignantly, "What,
and leave baby!" Do not spend all your evenings upstairs, and do not

confine your conversation exclusively to whooping-cough and measles.
My dear little woman, the child is not going to die every time it

sneezes, the house is not bound to get burned down and the nurse run
away with a soldier every time you go outside the front door; nor the

cat sure to come and sit on the precious child's chest the moment you
leave the bedside. You worry yourself a good deal too much about that

solitary chick, and you worry everybody else too. Try and think of
your other duties, and your pretty face will not be always puckered

into wrinkles, and there will be cheerfulness" target="_blank" title="n.高兴，愉快">cheerfulness in the parlor as well as
in the nursery. Think of your big baby a little. Dance him about a

bit; call him pretty names; laugh at him now and then. It is only the
first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time. Five or six do

not require nearly so much attention as one. But before then the
mischief has been done. A house where there seems no room for him and

a wife too busy to think of him have lost their hold on that so
unreasonable husband of yours, and he has learned to look elsewhere

for comfort and companionship.
But there, there, there! I shall get myself the character of a

baby-hater if I talk any more in this strain. And Heaven knows I am
not one. Who could be, to look into the little innocent faces

clustered in timid helplessness round those great gates that open down
into the world?

The world--the small round world! what a vast mysterious place it must
seem to baby eyes! What a trackless continent the back garden

appears! What marvelous explorations they make in the cellar under
the stairs! With what awe they gaze down the long street, wondering,

like us bigger babies when we gaze up at the stars, where it all ends!
And down that longest street of all--that long, dim street of life

that stretches out before them--what grave, old-fashioned looks they
seem to cast! What pitiful, frightened looks sometimes! I saw a

little mite sitting on a doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I
shall never forget the look that the gas-lamp showed me on its wizen

face--a look of dull despair, as if from the squalid court the vista
of its own squalid life had risen, ghostlike, and struck its heart

dead with horror.
Poor little feet, just commencing the stony journey! We old

travelers, far down the road, can only pause to wave a hand to you.
You come out of the dark mist, and we, looking back, see you, so tiny

in the distance, standing on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched
out toward us. God speed you! We would stay and take your little

hands in ours, but the murmur of the great sea is in our ears and we
may not linger. We must hasten down, for the shadowy ships are

waiting to spread their sable sails.
ON EATING AND DRINKING.

I always was fond of eating and drinking, even as a child--especially
eating, in those early days. I had an appetite then, also a

digestion. I remember a dull-eyed, livid-complexioned gentleman
coming to dine at our house once. He watched me eating for about five

minutes, quite fascinated seemingly, and then he turned to my father
with--

"Does your boy ever suffer from dyspepsia?"
"I never heard him complain of anything of that kind," replied my

father. "Do you ever suffer from dyspepsia, Colly wobbles?" (They
called me Colly wobbles, but it was not my real name.)

"No, pa," I answered. After which I added:
"What is dyspepsia, pa?"

My livid-complexioned friend regarded me with a look of mingled
amazement and envy. Then in a tone of infinite pity he slowly said:

"You will know--some day."
My poor, dear mother used to say she liked to see me eat, and it has

always been a pleasant reflection to me since that I must have given
her much gratification in that direction. A growing, healthy lad,

taking plenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself from
indulging in too much study, can generally satisfy the most exacting

expectations as regards his feeding powers.
It is amusing to see boys eat when you have not got to pay for it.

Their idea of a square meal is a pound and a half of roast beef with
five or six good-sized potatoes (soapy ones preferred as being more

substantial), plenty of greens, and four thick slices of Yorkshire
pudding, followed by a couple of currant dumplings, a few green

apples, a pen'orth of nuts, half a dozen jumbles, and a bottle of
ginger-beer. After that they play at horses.

How they must despise us men, who require to sit quiet for a couple of
hours after dining off a spoonful of clear soup and the wing of a

chicken!
But the boys have not all the advantages on their side. A boy never

enjoys the luxury of being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He can
never stretch out his legs, put his hands behind his head, and,

closing his eyes, sink into the ethereal blissfulness that encompasses
the well-dined man. A dinner makes no difference whatever to a boy.

To a man it is as a good fairy's potion, and after it the world
appears a brighter and a better place. A man who has dined

satisfactorily experiences a yearning love toward all his
fellow-creatures. He strokes the cat quite gently and calls it "poor

pussy," in tones full of the tenderest emotion. He sympathizes with
the members of the German band outside and wonders if they are cold;

and for the moment he does not even hate his wife's relations.
A good dinner brings out all the softer side of a man. Under its

genial influence the gloomy and morose become jovial and chatty.
Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of the day go about

looking as if they lived on vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into
wreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a tendency to pat small

children on the head and to talk to them--vaguely--about sixpences.
Serious men thaw and become mildlycheerful, and snobbish young men of

the heavy-mustache type forget to make themselves objectionable.
I always feel sentimental" target="_blank" title="a.感伤的；多愁善感的">sentimental myself after dinner. It is the only time

when I can properlyappreciate love-stories. Then, when the hero
clasps "her" to his heart in one last wild embrace and stifles a sob,

I feel as sad as though I had dealt at whist and turned up only a
deuce; and when the heroine dies in the end I weep. If I read the

same tale early in the morning I should sneer at it. Digestion, or
rather indigestion, has a marvelous effect upon the heart. If I want

to write any thing very pathetic--I mean, if I want to try to write
anything very pathetic--I eat a large plateful of hot buttered muffins

about an hour beforehand, and then by the time I sit down to my work a
feeling of unutterable melancholy has come over me. I picture

heartbroken lovers parting forever at lonelywayside stiles, while the
sad twilight deepens around them, and only the tinkling of a distant

sheep-bell breaks the sorrow-laden silence. Old men sit and gaze at
withered flowers till their sight is dimmed by the mist of tears.

Little dainty maidens wait and watch at open casements; but "he cometh
not," and the heavy years roll by and the sunny gold tresses wear

white and thin. The babies that they dandled have become grown men
and women with podgy torments of their own, and the playmates that

they laughed with are lying very silent under the waving grass. But
still they wait and watch, till the dark shadows of the unknown night

steal up and gather round them and the world with its childish
troubles fades from their aching eyes.

I see pale corpses tossed on white-foamed waves, and death-beds
stained with bitter tears, and graves in trackless deserts. I hear

the wild wailing of women, the low moaning of little children, the dry
sobbing of strong men. It's all the muffins. I could not conjure up

one melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and a glass of champagne.
A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, and indeed no sentiment of

any kind can stand upon an empty one. We have not time or inclination
to indulge in fanciful troubles until we have got rid of our real

misfortunes. We do not sigh over dead dicky-birds with the bailiff in
the house, and when we do not know where on earth to get our next

shilling from, we do not worry as to whether our mistress' smiles are