Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/40

The first three months of infancy should be a season of quietness. The unfolding organs require the nursing of silence and of love. The delicate system, like the mimosa, shrinks from every rude touch. Violent motions are uncongenial to the new- born. Loud, sharp sounds, and even glaring colours, should be excluded from the nursery. The visual and auditory nerves, those princely ambassadors to the mind, are still in embryo. Inure them tenderly and gradually to their respective functions.

The first months of infancy are a spot of bright- ness to a faithful and affectionate mother; a dream of bliss, from which she wakes to more complicated duties; a payment for past suffering, a preparation for future toil. I heard a lady, who had brought up a large family, say it was the “only period of a mother’s perfect enjoyment.” At its expiration comes dentition, with a host of physical ills. The character begins to develope, and sometimes to take that tinge which occasional pain of body or fret- fulness of temper impart. The alphabet of exist- ence is learned. We can perceive that its combi- nations are not always in harmony. The little being takes hold upon this life of trial. Soon, its ignorance must be dispelled, its perceptions guided, its waywardness quelled, its passions held in check, by one who often feels herself too infirm for the mighty task.

Yet, were I to define the climax of happiness