slowly strengthen those efforts, and make that to be a real deed,
bearing tranquillity for thyself, which at first was but a feeble wish
breathing homage to _Him_.

In after-life, from twenty to twenty-four, on looking back to those
struggles of my childhood, I used to wonder exceedingly that a child
could be exposed to struggles on such a scale. But two views unfolded
upon me as my experience widened, which took away that wonder. The first
was the vast scale upon which the sufferings of children are found
everywhere expanded in the realities of life. The generation of infants
which you see is but part of those who belong to it; were born in it;
and make, the world over, not one half of it. The missing half, more
than an equal number to those of any age that are now living, have
perished by every kind of torments. Three thousand children per
annum--that is, three hundred thousand per century; that is (omitting
Sundays), about ten every day--pass to heaven through flames[2] in this
very island of Great Britain. And of those who survive to reach
maturity what multitudes have fought with fierce pangs of hunger, cold,
and nakedness! When I came to know all this, then reverting my eye to
_my_ struggle, I said oftentimes it was nothing! Secondly, in watching
the infancy of my own children, I made another discovery--it is well
known to mothers, to nurses, and also to philosophers--that the tears
and lamentations of infants during the year or so when they have no
_other_ language of complaint run through a gamut that is as
inexhaustible as the cremona of Paganini. An ear but moderately learned
in that language cannot be deceived as to the rate and _modulus_ of the
suffering which it indicates. A fretful or peevish cry cannot by any
efforts make itself impassioned. The cry of impatience, of hunger, of
irritation, of reproach, of alarm, are all different--different as a
chorus of Beethoven from a chorus of Mozart. But if ever you saw an
infant suffering for an hour, as sometimes the healthiest does, under
some attack of the stomach, which has the tiger-grasp of the Oriental
cholera, then you will hear moans that address to their mothers an
anguish of supplication for aid such as might storm the heart of Moloch.
Once hearing it, you will not forget it. Now, it was a constant remark
of mine, after any storm of that nature (occurring, suppose, once in two
months), that always on the following day, when a long, long sleep had
chase