He shrank with winking eyes from an
uplifted hand, even if the gesture were one of mere amazement, or
affection, and sat patiently, like a little well-trained dog, when he
saw food placed before me, until invited to partake thereof. His manner
was wistful and deprecating even to pathos, and I longed for one burst
of passion, one evidence of self-will, to prove to myself that I, like
others he had been recently thrown with, was not the meanest of all
created creatures--a baby's despot!
Oh, better than this the cap and bells, and infant tyranny forever, and
the wildest freaks of baby folly. He suffered silently, as I have seen
no other child do, uncomplainingly even, and at such times would sink
into moods of the blackest gloom, like those of an old, gouty subject.
Hypochondria, baby as he was, seemed already to have fixed his fangs
upon him. He had days of profound melancholy, when nothing provoked a
smile, and others of bitter, silent fretting, inconceivably distressing;
again there were periods of the wildest joy, only restrained by that
reticence which had become habitual, from positive boisterousness.
All this I could have compelled into subservience, of course, by
substituting fear for affection. It is not a difficult matter for the
strong and cunning to cow and crush the spirit of a little child; no
great achievement, after all, nor proof of power, though many boast of
it as such.
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