as if by a sort of instinct, what is the general nature of its mother's wishes, so that it will often combine the pleasure of anticipating them, with the duty of compliance.
All weak persons unacquainted with the world, and disappointed in their own experience, are naturally miserable when unsupported, and left to themselves. What then must be the suffering of a child whose own will is its only law, and who has not learned what is right and wrong, nor even what is possible and impossible to be had, or done! We see its sufferings written on its anxious, irritated countenance. We behold in its manner, alternately irresolute and determined, the caprice and waywardness by which it is disturbed. We hear the agony of its disappointment after each successive attempt to do what was impracticable, or what was fraught with danger and pain; and we ask of the mother, in common kindness, to establish for her child a rule of safety and of peace, and to let that rule be—implicit obedience to her own authority.
It is distressing even to the casual observer, to mark, in the impatient, feverish, irritable character of such a child, the wretchedness which is preparing for it in after life; and not in after life alone, for each day is fraught with suffering to the little being who is thus allowed to be a law unto itself, before it has the means of understanding what is right or safe, pleasant or possible, to possess. Yes, we can many of us feelingly attest what it was to spend a day—and happy for those with whom a day was all—in company with the child who was suffered to crush the hot patty into its mouth, to make tea for its mamma, and consequently to pour the scalding water upon its breast, to climb the edge of the round table upon which soup had been placed, to burn its fingers by roasting its own apple at the fire, to eat more at every meal than it had power to digest, and to allay the cravings of a diseased appetite by having one hand perpetually supplied with sugar-candy, and the other with sweet-cake; to finish all, by sitting up late at night because it did not choose to go to bed.
Nor need we add to this catalogue those offences of which the child takes no cognizance, such as gingerbread stuck upon the visiter's chair, and butter smeared upon her dress; nor those dreadful eruptions of passion and distress
