The new parent's assistant / by Stephen Paget.

  • Stephen Paget
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The new parent's assistant / by Stephen Paget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ness ; you should have chaffed me, and I you, for it was no fault of mine ; there was nothing to conceal or be ashamed of ; and I might have explained it all so lightly to you then, so happily—not left it to be read out to you now, over my coffin, to add to your misery, and you crying the whole time. Beggars all: that is what we are. Into this world we are born, what there is of us, empty-handed, empty-headed, empty-hearted; we bring nothing. If we were to wait till we had something to bring, we should never get here. So soon as we are here, we begin to acquire something. First, a breath of air ; then soap and water, clothing, mother’s milk, a cradle, and sleep. These seven gifts—counting the soap and the water as two—are bestowed on us within the first few hours. Other gifts, in due time, are added to them : such as teeth, a perambulator, the power to stand, the power to speak, more teeth, picture-books, and some sense of a difference between right and wrong. We have nothing to do with the coming of these gifts : they just come, and we receive them. So it is, and will be to the end, with all our gifts. They arrive, and we take them in, like so many Christ- mas presents, at the front door of the house of life. Every beat of my heart is somehow a gift; and the same is true of all such advantages as I have obtained from inheritance, education, patronage, example, ex- perience, and friendship. None of us is more than a
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