"Good heavens! how like you he is!" The poor man may hesitate at saying
yes, but I defy him not to smile. He will say, "Perhaps . . . . Do
you think so? . . . Well, perhaps so, side face."

And do not you be mistaken; if he does so, it is that you may reply in
astonishment: "Why, the child is your very image."

He is pleased, and that is easily explained; for is not this likeness a
visible tie between him and his work? Is it not his signature, his
trade-mark, his title-deed, and, as it were, the sanction of his rights?

To this physical resemblance there soon succeeds a moral likeness,
charming in quite another way. You are moved to tears when you recognize
the first efforts of this little intelligence to grasp your ideas.
Without check or examination it accepts and feeds on them. By degrees
the child shares your tastes, your habits, your ways. He assumes a deep
voice to be like papa, asks for your braces, sighs before your boots,
and sits down with admiration on your hat. He protects his mamma when he
goes out with her, and scolds the dog, although he is very much afraid of
him; all to be like papa. Have you caught him at meals with his large
observant eyes fixed on you, studying your face with open mouth and spoon
in hand, and imitating his model with an expression of astonishment and
respect. Listen to his long gossips, wandering as his little brain; does
he not say:

"When I am big like papa I shall have a moustache and a stick like him,
and I shall not be afraid in the dark, because it is silly to be afraid
in the dark when you are big, and I shall say 'damn it,' for I shall then
be grown up."