My Heart Has Bled For
Them As I Have Heard Them Squalling By The Hour Together In Agonies
Of Discontent And Dyspepsia.
Can it be, I wonder, that children
are happier when they are made to obey orders, and are sent
To bed
at six o'clock, than when allowed to regulate their own conduct;
that bread and milk are more favorable to laughter and soft,
childish ways than beef-steaks and pickles three times a day; that
an occasional whipping, even, will conduce to rosy cheeks? It is
an idea which I should never dare to broach to an American mother;
but I must confess that, after my travels on the Western Continent,
my opinions have a tendency in that direction. Beef-steaks and
pickles certainly produce smart little men and women. Let that be
taken for granted. But rosy laughter and winning, childish ways
are, I fancy, the produce of bread and milk. But there was a third
reason why traveling on these boats was not so pleasant as I had
expected. I could not get my fellow-travelers to talk to me. It
must be understood that our fellow-travelers were not generally of
that class which we Englishmen, in our pride, designate as
gentlemen and ladies. They were people, as I have said, in search
of new homes and new fortunes. But I protest that as such they
would have been, in those parts, much more agreeable as companions
to me than any gentlemen or any ladies, if only they would have
talked to me.
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