At any rate, attention is beginning to be thoroughly awake
as to the point of _where_ we shall live. Now, then, _how_ shall we
live?
It is just as well to begin early. Infancy is too late. If men were
dealt with like other live stock, a contractor might undertake to
deliver at Long Wharf a cargo of three-year old human colts and fillies
of almost any required standard of development and health, in five years
from date. If only a cheap article were required, such and such parents
would be selected; if the young animals were to be of prime quality, he
must know it long enough beforehand, and be particular in his choice.
This is plain speaking, but true,--as everybody knows, who studies the
laws of life. _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. Given a half-starved dyspeptic
and a bloodless negative blonde as parents, Hercules or Apollo is
an impossibility in their progeny. Yet people look with infinite
expectations of health, strength, beauty, intellect, as the product of
$0 times {-1}$. The late Colonel Jaques, of the "Ten Hills Farm," knew
ever so much better;--what a pity so much sound physiology should have
been confined to "Caelobs," and "Dolly Creampot," and the likes of them!
Granted a sound, fair baby,--_viable_, as the French say,--liveable, or
life-capable, and life-worthy.
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