The British Essayists Volume 15 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1823 Excerpt: ...so divided her conversation with the two pretty prattlers, as to make them both equally cheerful. As I came, she said with a blush, ' Mr. Ironside, though you are an old bachelor, you must not laugh at my tenderness to my children.' I need not tell my reader, what civil things I said in answer to the lady, whose matron-like behaviour gave me infinite satisfaction: since I myself take great pleasure in playing with children, and am seldom unprovided, of plums or marbles, to make my court to such entertaining companions. Whence is it, said I to myself when I was alone, that the affection of parents is so intense to their offspring? Is it because they generally find such resemblances in what they have produced, as that thereby they think themselves renewed in their children, and are willing to transmit themselves to future time? Or is it, because they think themselves obliged, by the dictates of humanity, to nourish and rear what is placed so immediately under their protection; and what by their means is brought into this world, the scene of misery, of necessity? These will not come up to it. Is it not rather the good providence of that Being, who in a super-eminent degree protects and cherishes the whole race of mankind, his sons and creatures? How shall we, any other way, account for this natural affection, so signally displayed throughout every species of the animal creation, without which the course of nature would quickly fail, and every various kind be extinct? Instances of tenderness in the most savage brutes are so frequent, that quotations of that kind are altogether unnecessary. If we, who have no particular concern in them, take a secret delight in observing the gentle dawn of reason in babes; if our ears are soothed with their half-forming and aimi...