Familiar Epistle from a Parent to a Child Aged Two Years and Two Months

MY CHILD,
To recount with what trouble I have brought you up–with what an anxious eye I have regarded your progress,–how late and how often I have sat up at night working for you,–and how many thousand letters I have received from, and written to your various relations and friends, many of whom have been of a querulous and irritable turn,–to dwell on the anxiety and tenderness with which I have (as far as I possessed the power) inspected and chosen your food; rejecting the indigestible and heavy matter which some injudicious but well-meaning old ladies would have had you swallow, and retaining only those light and pleasant articles which I deemed calculated to keep you free from all gross humours, and to render you an agreeable child, and one who might be popular with society in general,–to dilate on the steadiness with which I have prevented your annoying any company by talking politics–always assuring you that you would thank me for it yourself some day when you grew older,–to expatiate, in short, upon my own assiduity as a parent, is beside my present purpose, though I cannot but contemplate your fair appearance–your robust health, and unimpeded circulation (which I take

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