They beat on glass and tin and iron to distract our
attention and drown out our noise by a bigger one; they shake back and
forth before our eyes all things that glitter and blaze; they shout and
sing songs; the house and the neighborhood are searched and racked for
something which will "amuse" the baby. Then, when we will no longer be
"amused," and when all this restlessness outside and around us, added to
the restlessness inside us, has driven us more than frantic, and the day
or the night of their well-meant clamor is nearly over, their strength
worn out, and their wits at end,--then comes the "soothing syrup,"
deadliest weapon of all. This we cannot resist. If there be they who are
mighty enough to pour it down our throats, physically or spiritually, to
sleep we must go, and asleep we must stay so long as the effect of the
dose lasts.
It is of this, we oftenest die,--not in a day or a year, but after many
days and many years; when in some sharp crisis we need for our salvation
the force which should have been developing in our infancy, the muscle or
the nerve which should have been steadily growing strong till that moment.
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