The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 9, May, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 9, May, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Well, this being who is now rocked in his cradle, with these germs
infolded, but unperceived, in his heart and in his feeble intellect,
although the most helpless and dependent of animated creation,
commands the sympathies and love of those who were the authors of its
being, and possesses already so great an influence, that he cannot in
after life, "by the most imperious orders which he addresses to the
most obsequious slaves, exercise an authority more commanding, than
that which in the first hours of his life, when a few indistinct cries
and tears were his only language, he exercised irresistibly over
hearts of the very existence of which he was ignorant." But it is the
mother that gave it birth, who feels the deepest sympathy with all its
pains and wants, and carries in her heart, the most unbounded and
unremitting affection for it. Man as I have before observed, has a
ruder and a hardier nature than woman: the out of door world, with all
its bustle and jostling, its difficulties, dangers, hardships and
labors, is the theatre for his actions. He only enjoys the domestic
scenes during the intervals of his labors, and then perhaps worn down
by toil and fatigue, he dandles for a moment his smiling infant on his
knee, and retires to rest, or to muse on the projects of his ambition,
or to form schemes for the accumulation of wealth and the extension of
his influence. And when he thinks of his child, he associates him with
those schemes and projects with which he is to be connected in after
life, and looks upon
"The bright glad creature springing in his path
But as the heir of his great name, the young
And stately tree, whose rising strength ere long
Shall bear his trophies well. And this is love!
This is man's love!"
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