" There was no sense of childhood in an age
that could think this an opportune pleasantry.
But impatience of the way and the wayfaring was to disappear from a later
century--an age that has found all things to be on a journey, and all
things complete in their day because it is their day, and has its
appointed end. It is the tardy conviction of this, rather than a
sentiment ready made, that has caused the childhood of children to seem,
at last, something else than a defect.
OUT OF TOWN
To be on a _villeggiatura_ with the children is to surprise them in ways
and words not always evident in the London house. The narrow lodgings
cause you to hear and overhear. Nothing is more curious to listen to
than a young child's dramatic voice. The child, being a boy, assumes a
deep, strong, and ultra-masculine note, and a swagger in his walk, and
gives himself the name of the tallest of his father's friends. The tone
is not only manly; it is a tone of affairs, and withal careless; it is
intended to suggest business, and also the possession of a top-hat and a
pipe, and is known in the family of the child as his "official voice."
One day it became more official than ever, and really more masculine than
life; and it alternated with his own tones of three years old. In these,
he asked with humility, "Will you let me go to heaven if I'm naughty?
Will you?" Then he gave the reply in the tone of affairs, the official
voice at its very best: "No, little boy, I won't!" It was evident that
the infant was not assuming the character of his father's tallest friend
this time, but had taken a role more exalted.
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