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    " There is a cabbage in . my garden , " said Isaac , " wliicli grew from a seed that escaped a bird ' s bill one day last autumn , as it pecked the parent stock . In the winter it lay covered with snow- Frost nipped its bed tightly about it , and half-pinched out its life . Yet it lived and grew , a fibry tree , at first , in the soil , then a pin-point of green on the surface ; a slenderling anon , that drooped its head for faintness , when the meridian sun shot at it , that scarcely sustained the gently falling dews , and bended to breaking when the rain came . Then a sturdy plant , a uniped of growth and substance , whose heart widened with its days . Its roots , which nqw stretch eight inches into the soil , are preyed upon by worms r greedy of

    insects cuddle among its leaves ; and its heart is fed upon by millions minute existences . John , the gardener , will get ninepence for it on Saturday at the market ! " ,. " Whatever are you thinking about , my boy ? " said I , smiling at his history of a cabbage . " I have been considering , " he answered , " what and where was I , when my father and mother exchanged glances for the first time at M ! rs . ' s party , on the evening of the 7 th January , 1827 : and , do you know , I cannot form any satisfactory hypothesis on the subject . Isot but that I have invented a dozen . I embodied my favourite one in a couple of stanzas last night . Will you hear them P " " With pleasure , " said I , " and see that you do them justice in the reading . " " Well , here they are ; I have called them—A THOUGHT . i . I ' m a soul as old as the world , I breathed in the dawn of eternal day ; I ' ve played with stars in the depths of space , And run them many a merry race , Where heaven's dust flies , o'er the milky way . I wias free- —I was free . II . I ' m a soul in a prison of clay , Laden with fetters of flesh and bone ; From morn to night and from night to morn , Every minute my burden is borne . I fret my chains , and wrestle , and moan , To be free—to be free . " " Hravo ! " cried I , when he had finished reading . " I like the idea ; it is at least more poetical than , believing that , on the night alluded to , you lay indigested in your papa ' s stomach ! As for the prisons of clay , they are model prisons , my boy , fitted up on beneficent principles , and not to be sneered at . But , by Jove , I like the idea !"

    " Now , Dick , " said my friend , rather seriously , " stop jesting , like a good fellow , and let us talk over this subject . " " With all my heart . " So we talked about Babies for a long time ; and here is the outcome of our conversation . When Baby first enters the world , we roll the pulpy organism in flannel and niche it in a nice cosy cradle to rest . The puling weak creature , insensible to joy or grief , was ushered into life with a pang , and a scream ; and here it now lies oppressed by a long and painful stupor—a nightmare prefacing the dream of a life , Turn aside its covering and look on it , —it has all the physical attributes of the biped , though not in all their grace

    and symmetry . It neither sees with its eyes , hears with its ears , nor discerns with its olfactories and tangentials as we do ; and yet the development of this flannel -bound brat may one day meet us—a philosopher , —a sceptic , —a puritan , —a what-not!—perhaps in society say an impudent thing to us , —put us down , show us up I God is great , —but is not this amusing P This rudiment of a philosopher might enter three times into a draper's yard stick !—an incautious pillow would take but a few seconds to dismiss its soul to Hades !—yet will it live to ask itself whether it has a soul—to struggle fiercely to comprehend itself ; which it will no more be able to do than to take its head in its teeth—the poor little innocent wretch !

    Shall we try and comprehend It P—alas , it is but another self , and wo shall not succeed . Let us be content to be ignorant where knowledge is impossible ; enough for us , that whencesoever it has come , it is here now , tiny , helpless , little soul , —nabbed at last and fixed here in God ' s penal settlement , over which evangelical parsondom , and other self-elected spiritual tormentors , experimentally preside ! There it lies , the unconscious raw material of a man—as yet , an unadulterated specimen of humanity . Where out of the cradle can wo find Buch P What relation , pray , is there between the sand on tho beach and tho mirrors in which wo admire ourselves P—between a ship ' s cable and superfine note-paper P ¦—between a spider ' s entrails and a lady ' s silk gown F—between the baby of tho cradle and tho bosom , and the man or woman of good society P Sloop on , little soul—happy thou , it may bo , should thy sleep know no awaking !

    If the powers of tho mind aro there , as some philosophers assure uh , encased in tho strength and experience of a fore oxintoncc , —if Memory , and Perception , and [ Reflection , and Imagination , and Wit , and all the allied powers in the grand and eternal constitution of tho floul arc there , and if they bring with them their foreign airs and prejudices , how do they behave- when on tho walls of their organic prison , life first dawns , and the opening eyes telegraph to the Council in tho brain ' s assembly rooms , the first impressions from tho new world P Iiot us follow our fancy . And firflt : tho SiONflics like fopln peer from their posts out on tho strange world across whoso threshold they have entered ; the alphabet of things is new to thorn , they want u key to the symbolism of tho universe . At each new impress from the outer sphere , they behave liko the people of a city besieged , who fly to tho ramparts and Walls , wondering and wisting when any now or unhonrd-of engine is rolled up to tho attack . Sight , come from a world of dazzling brilliancy , iu . vain adunta his spying apparatus to etudy

    through the frame ; he stations watchers oh the fingers and palms , but shrinks from his first encounter with coarse materiality . He has come from the world of abstract forms , a perfect geometrician , but fails to recognize either the parallelipipedon on the rotund . Heaking for millions of ages had listened to the music of the spheres . His fine taste is sickened with disgust . He sits in the ears all day , sat and regretful , while every point in space centres a wave that surges in low murmurs into his retreat . He will presently lay aside his fastidiousness : the grinding of a street-organ will yet put him into raptures . Taste ,: at first warning of the approach of earth , stations himself as keeper at the gates , to test all used to drink nectar with the

    form . He washes his eyeballs ; adjusts his humours , and strives to bring things to a focus . At last a mother ' s face is painted on the brain . Wit finds no contrast to lead to laughter ; Imagination never in its infinitude of creations conjured up such a , shape ; Memory talks anxiously aside with his elder sister Recollection ; while Wonder , returned from looking out through the eyes , throws his first summersault in the centre of the group ! And now the face smiles in holy calmness , while this ring of observers watch it on the brain . Mysterious sympathy!—the pulse quickens , — -the nerves vibrate responsive to the feeling at the heart ;—a smile steals over the face of the Babe , —a placid rippling smile , the silent signal of the slowly dawning consciousness within . Touch diffuses itself

    imports . Thoughtless fellow!—who Gods , and enjoy the choicest fruits from the Eternal Trees . The nurse ' s spoon with the everlasting oil of castor is presented to him . Poor sense , he spits and sickens with disgust , —the extremest portions of the organism tingle in sympathy with his suffering—^ Smell : — " Enough , " cries one , impatient of these newcomers from a world of spirits , " enough of these tyros in the school of experience . Your philosophy is absurd ; perception is but educated sensation ; and sensation is but—" you hesitate , our dear sir 1 The philosophy which guided our fancy is absurd ; granted , but your philosophy may be offensive as well as

    absurd . We cannot Snow how we are brought into our mysterious intimacy with space and time , and form . We are aware of that . Speculation is the child of impotence . Let us see the child of yowr weakness . To please you , then , we will reverse the picture , and regard Baby as the result of numberless differentiations of cells and tissues * whose last differentiations brought it into the open any and into swaddling bands , and who has yet to be differentiated into thinking and daring manhood , and thence into oblivious abysses beyond-the grave ; into grasses , and _ Ll _ _ _ * J . _ ' T » — ** . £ ? . , « . vt ~ *\ - « . ¦» - * -4-4- * - * v- » -v ' « -4- •*•« YfW ^ Stwvv I n't * - « -v * M f * r \ a a t \ A'N "V * fWi ^ i n a . 1 T > TA TXT"IY 1 /" 1 /

    DHen . Cc 1 I 1 WJ UbW UUU IDLUl / l / VH , UV UXlUIJj ^ UJ . aX , LMitiCD J ^ CJ . jJlUXIW . , mw TTJLU-u . in an alderman ' s stomach , and into blood in his coarse and bulgy veins ; till once again it reappears , from its weary round of differentiations , a prattler on a mother's breast , or a loved rogue , pulling its papa ' s whiskers P We think no longer now of Baby as possessing mind , but as having certain undeveloped electricities in its branular department . Poor Baby ! if this be what thou art ! if from such we are ! We are fain to wish thee dead , and ourselves dead . Better , indeed , incorporated in the all extended electric ocean , to speed a jobber ' s he along the wires , than to be a lie ourselves ! Biojr Ftttebbi ..

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    WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH . If gentlemen will take ladies to Richmond and Greenwich with views of gallantry flanked by whitebait ( I never do 1 ) they must be " prepared for the consequences . " By the way , what is the subtle link connecting gastronomy with matrimony ( right and left-handed ) , —guldsity with what the French call " overflowings of the heart P" There is such a link . Not only do I observe young gentlemen of the Lovelace species to be very partial to whitebait dinners , but I note as an invariable fact , a law of conjugal life ^ that the happiest couples are always fond of tho cuisine ; correct views on tho constitution of a dinner engender deeper and more lasting affections than the strictest sympathy in orthodoxy , or the niost thorough participation " in views for the elevation of the species . " - ® rgo I , being a logician , infer a causal connexion between happiness m the married state , and harmony in gastronomic desires . JLrgal I , being one to whom Logic is a guide , philosopher , arid friend , not feeling ^ 3 ^ 5 *" capable of gastronomic excellence , have never marr ied . Shakspeare , who knew everything , calls Love , with sad irony , — " A madness moat discreet , A choking gall , and a preserving sweet . " thereby profoundly , though obscurely , intimating tho connexion between love and jam-pots , which our proverbial phrase , " cupboard love ma consecrated . __ v Whitebait dinners aro pleasant tilings , if you don't eat tho wHtdbmt , and don't pay the bill . Tho bill is a decided drawback ; so is the J « J sometimes ; ho was so pre-eminently on tho occasion of Mr . and Mtb . Buzzard's clandestine dinner at the Crown and Sceptre , as set torttt i » Maddison Morton ' s " screaming" farce at tho Adelphi , adapted trom Un Garpon de ekes V 6 ry . Tho Buzzards have married in » e 0 * °% J ~ aro dining in secret , their Ute-a-Uto much and frequently disturbed vy the incessant Apparitions of tho waiter . This waiter , on ™ o opening the piece , hag quitted tho Crown and Sceptre , and comes to fill ™^ -I [* f "" Of " boy" at Buzzard ' s establishment . Buzzard , recognising mm , imagines that ho " knows all . " He knows nothing , but that is ft » 0 ° ou as all , arid bo ho mysteriously assents , tyrannizing over Buzzard u mariner " easier seen than deflcribod . " Go and see Keeley do it . * one of tho drollofit farces you can seo ; tho dialoguo ™ . ™ * lV * Z iiA oddity , the situations aro droll from Keeley'n fat furi , and from the wnu disregard of probability which the author laughingly passes over . tho first night there was too groat a tendency to ride J ^ ftSS i " to death by repetition , but whon pruned 6 f theso « damnable it&atiom , tho furco will bo a jm > at buccoss .

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    1124 THE LEADER- [ Satxikday ^ ¦ ¦ '¦¦! ' ' ¦ ' ' - '"' ' *^^^ M * ' MM * fc *^ " M " ** MM "' ^ M ' M ^ M ' ¦ - ^ ¦ ^ _^_

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 19, 1853, page 1124, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2013/page/20/