Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that a mother should nurse her child, that it was a crime to put the poor little creatures in the hands of mercenary persons who could not have a mother’s affection for them and simply made a business of hiring out their bodies; and in support of that argument he cited the animals, which nurse their young themselves and never seek others to replace them.
But, in the first place, we might remind Jean-Jacques that animals lead a regular life—regular, that is to say, according to their nature and their physical strength. Have you ever heard of lionesses, she-bears, or cats even, passing their nights at balls, giving receptions, and dining out frequently? I think not; nor have I!
We may be allowed then to insist upon a difference between animals and men; and despite our profound regard for the philosopher of Geneva, we will say to him further, that in this world of ours there are positions, trades, branches of business, which make it impossible for a woman to perform that maternal duty to which he insists that all women should submit. When a woman, in order to earn her living, is obliged to sit all day at a desk, or to work constantly with her needle, how do you expect her to take her child in her arms every instant? There is a still stronger reason for her not doing it, if her health is poor and failing.
Nurses sell their milk, you say, and never have a mother’s affection for a strange child.
In the first place, it is not proved that a nurse does not love her nursling dearly; there is every reason to believe, on the contrary, that she becomes attached to the little creature whose life she sustains; and after all, even if it were simply a matter of business, has the baker any affection for the people to whom he sells bread? But that does not prevent us from living on that bread.
Philosophers, men of genius, aye, even the greatest men, sometimes put forth propositions which are far from being orthodox; and they make mistakes like other men.
But there are people who take for very noble thoughts everything which comes from the pen of a man who has written great things. Such people are very generous. We rarely find gold without alloy; and can man produce what Nature cannot produce? There are people also, who, when they walk through a cemetery, believe in the truth of all the inscriptions carved upon the tombs, according to which the people there interred were models of virtue, goodness, uprightness, etc., etc. I have infinite respect for the dead, but I do not see the necessity of trying to deceive the living. Those who are no more were no better than we, and we are no better than those who will come after us.
We were saying then that little Chérubin was no longer as beautiful as an angel, although he bore the name of one; but that did not prevent all those who went to pay their respects to the mother from complimenting her upon her child. Honest Aménaïde listened with a sweet smile to all the flattering words which were addressed to her son. Meanwhile, Monsieur de Grandvilain lay back in an easy-chair, patted his legs, and shook his head, and looked at the ladies with an air which seemed almost to say:
“When you want one like him, apply to me.”
Luckily for him, none of the ladies was tempted to put him to the proof.