The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 1, July 1843Various
General
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 1, July 1843
Various
Periodicals
A YOUNG man who 'wants encouragement,' had immortalized family
affection, by representing papa standing up at one end of the
picture, ('his lips glued to each other, and his bullet eyes
wide open, though evidently seeing nothing,) and mamma at the
other; the peace being kept between them without the loss of an
inch of space, by their endless progeny, whose heights and ages
the artist has most accurately registered, by stringing them
strait out, closely linked together in a descending series, like
the reeds of Pan's pipe, which they farther resemble in the lank
uprightness of their figures, and the billious deadness of their
complexions. The _next_ of these Domestic Scenes reproaches the
idleness so remarkable in the foregoing, by the great variety
of employment which it exhibits, with the additional advantage
of allowing more elbow-room to the fancy of the painter; who
in the first place has contrived to record, in the mother of
the family, a truly exemplary instance of notability, combined
with maternal tenderness; for she is seen, at the same point of
time, engaged in nursing one child in her lap, rocking with her
foot the cradle of another, hearing the task of a third, and
eyeing the frolics of a fourth; and all this without seeming
at all distracted from her needle, which she has just drawn
out at the utmost stretch of her arm. The remaining children
are all liberally supplied with such occupations or amusements
as, when followed at proper times and places, must be allowed
to become their sexes and ages, but which we are not exactly
prepared to see going on as here, all at once in the same
parlor. The young ladies of this extraordinary family can study
their maps and globes, pore over their books, and even practice
their music-lessons, without appearing once to know that those
boisterous and unruly little dogs, their brothers, are cracking
their whips, beating their drums, scampering about the room
with their wagons, etc.; the very baby in the cradle, instead
of being frightened out of its wits, as might reasonably be
expected, only appearing to be lulled into a still sounder
sleep, by the riotous gambols going on.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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