258.  It is, therefore, a very spurious kind of tenderness that prevents a mother from doing the things which, though disagreeable to the child, are so necessary to its lasting well-being.  The washing daily in the morning is a great thing; cold water winter or summer, and this never left to a servant, who has not, in such a case, either the patience or the courage that is necessary for the task.  When the washing is over, and the child dressed in its day-clothes, how gay and cheerful it looks!  The exercise gives it appetite, and then disposes it to rest; and it sucks and sleeps and grows, the delight of all eyes, and particularly those of the parents.  ‘I can’t bear that squalling!’ I have heard men say; and to which I answer, that ’I can’t bear such men!’ There are, I thank God, very few of them; for, if they do not always reason about the matter, honest nature teaches them to be considerate and indulgent towards little creatures so innocent and so helpless and so unconscious of what they do.  And the noise:  after all, why should it disturb a man?  He knows the exact cause of it:  he knows that it is the unavoidable consequence of a great good to his child, and of course to him:  it lasts but an hour, and the recompense instantly comes in the looks of the rosy child, and in the new hopes which every look excites.  It never disturbed me, and my occupation was one of those most liable to disturbance by noise.  Many a score papers have I written amidst the noise of children, and in my whole life never bade them be still.  When they grew up to be big enough to gallop about the house, I have, in wet weather, when they could not go out, written the whole day amidst noise that would have made some authors half mad.  It never annoyed me at all.  But a Scotch piper, whom an old lady, who lived beside us at Brompton, used to pay to come and play a long tune every day, I was obliged to bribe into a breach of contract.  That which you are pleased with, however noisy, does not disturb you.  That which is indifferent to you has not more effect.  The rattle of coaches, the clapper of a mill, the fall of water, leave your mind undisturbed.  But the sound of the pipe, awakening the idea of the lazy life of the piper, better paid than the labouring man, drew the mind aside from its pursuit; and, as it really was a nuisance, occasioned by the money of my neighbour, I thought myself justified in abating it by the same sort of means.

259.  The cradle is in poor families necessary; because necessity compels the mother to get as much time as she can for her work, and a child can rock the cradle.  At first we had a cradle; and I rocked the cradle, in great part, during the time that I was writing my first work, that famous MAITRE D’ANGLAIS, which has long been the first book in Europe, as well as in America, for teaching of French people the English language.  But we left off the use of the cradle