Chapter 9

And yet there is a childhood which is, maybe, the happiest period of our existence. Not the time of the shining morning face--of the curled top-knot--for to the excoriating action of the soaped towel was due that facial polish, and the twisting of the damped hair around the long-tailed ivory brush was attended with the shedding of bitter tears of rage and pain. But the second edition of the Book of Infancy, bound in shrivelled yellow leather and printed in faded ink. "The world," say the slippered pantaloon and the mumbling grandame, "was a fine place when we were young." And what is more, they really believe it. He was strong, fascinating and handsome--she was clever and beautiful. Both may say so as often as they like, and everybody credits them--because they are so old. _Comple et amur illam et amemus: plena est voluptatis si illâ scias uti_. Come, gentle Dotage! Shade me with thy kindly wing, lend me thy rose-coloured horn-glasses! Let me view the Past, not as it was, but as I would have had it. So shall the children cluster round my knee, and listen, wide-eyed and envying, as I tell them of the golden days of _my_ childhood, and the young people sigh, hearing of the brave and brilliant, beautiful and noble things that never happened in the bygone time when I was young. Only the middle-aged folk look a little doubtful, and Death, leaning over the back of my armchair, laughs outright, and taps me--as a reproving nurse might--on the withered lips with one bony finger-tip. After which I fall asleep, and am carried away to bed.

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[Sidenote: Alden philosophises.]

I have not been a child for several years; it is unnecessary to mention the precise number, but I have a clear recollection of the period. My childhood was certainly happy, so far as I was personally concerned, but I will not go so far as to say that it was a source of unmixed happiness to others. As to whether childhood is the happiest or the most miserable part of our existence, there is so much to be said on both sides that I am almost inclined to answer the question in a judicious and statesmanlike way, by saying that I yield to no one in my profound appreciation of the wide-reaching importance of the question, and that the day will certainly come when the awakened conscience of the nation will demand its settlement in accordance with right and justice. When that time arrives I need hardly say that I shall be found on the side of justice, but I am not yet wholly convinced that the time has fully arrived. In the meantime, however, I do not hesitate to say that in those cases where childhood is happier than mature age there can be but little doubt among thinking men of all shades of belief that maturity is, in some respects, at least less demonstrably happy than childhood. Now that would be eminently judicious, but, on the other hand, it would look like an underhanded attempt to introduce politics into the _Idler_. It will be better, therefore, to treat the subject in a philosophic way. The question which the Editors of the _Idler_ ask is, after all, a question as to the relative advantages of Idealism and Realism--spelled with the largest kind of capital letters. The small boy is ordinarily an Idealist, unless, of course, he belongs to the unhappy class of small boys who have to earn their own living when they ought to be at play, and who, having no time for dreaming, become Realists of the most hardened and painful type. In the former case the small boy is happy, for he lives in a world of his own creation, and for the purpose of happiness such a world is far better than the actual world. In the latter case he is generally more or less unhappy, for he is compelled to see the world as it really is, and he finds it not all nice. The realistic small boy can have very little true happiness. Fancy M. Zola's childhood: assuming, of course, that he was then a Realist, which he probably was not, judging from the fact that he is only a Realist professionally at the present day. To the childish Zola, life must have presented itself as a series of human documents. He saw things as they were, not as a small boy should see them. He could have had no genuine longings for a life of piracy, for he saw that the pirate, instead of being a gorgeously-dressed and nobly-chivalrous hero, was only a brutal ruffian travelling on the road to Execution Dock. Tin soldiers could have brought him no happiness, for he knew that they were only lifeless bits of tin, as incapable of fighting as the army of Monaco. It gave him no pleasure to be dressed in a pasteboard helmet and to wear a tin sword, for he knew that grown-up people would not mistake him for a soldier; and that a blue flannel shirt, and a cap with the name of some frigate on a silk ribbon, would not lead foreigners to believe that he was a French admiral at the age of seven. He may have found some little pleasure in playing marbles--not, of course, for the sake of that silly game, but for the reason that marbles are portable property, and that the more marbles a boy wins the richer he is--but for all other boyish diversions he must have felt a profound contempt.

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[Sidenote: And doesn't know.]

Beyond all doubt M. Zola would say that he is happier to-day (with "Nana" in its 150th thousand) than he was in his childhood, but that is because his childhood was devoid of Idealism. On the other hand, if I may be pardoned for mentioning myself in the same paragraph with the greatest novelist of all time, my own childhood was happy because I lived purely in a world of the imagination. There never was a bolder or more truly noble pirate than I was during the hour of the Sunday sermon, when I whiled away the good clergyman's discourse by sweeping the seas in my piratical schooner, and harrowing the Spanish Main. My tin soldiers were flesh and blood heroes, my kites flew nearly to the outer limits of the solar system, and I never quite lost the belief that I could dig a tunnel to China with the kitchen fire-shovel, had the cook only had sufficient scientific zeal to be willing to lend it to me for a few hours. I was very happy then, but I am equally happy now. I have never got over the Idealism of my childhood, and I make my own political and social world to-day quite as irrationally and delightfully as I did eighty--well, when I was a child. I do find, I admit, that one cannot be an Idealist in financial matters, which is, after all, the main source of unhappiness in mature life, but if you ask me whether I was happier in childhood than I am now, I should not know how to answer. All of which goes to show that I might have done better if I had stuck to the safe and judicious in my attempted answer, instead of yielding to the temptation to be philosophical.

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[Sidenote: Miss Florence Marryat thinks it the most miserable.]

If I am to choose one, or the other, extreme, I should say decidedly the most miserable, and made so by the folly, ignorance, or neglect of parents. Not one-hundredth part of the men and women who marry are fit to become fathers and mothers. Who does not pity the wretched little mortal whom one meets, dressed up in some fantastic or grotesque costume, to gratify the vanity of those who own it, forbidden to run or play, for fear of spoiling the velvet tunic, or silken sash--unable to be comfortable even, on account of buttoned boots and kid gloves? A child is simply a young animal. Give it warmth and food and liberty, and it will be happy and hungry and healthy! To dress it up in the fashion, and let it be dragged at the heels of an indifferent nursemaid along a pavement, is tantamount to confining a puppy by a heavy chain to a kennel. I believe the greatest misery of children arises from their being so culpably trusted to the care of servants. A fashionable mother engages a head-nurse, who is well-mannered, respectful, and experienced, and thereupon delivers over her children to her entire jurisdiction, perfectly content if they appear before her, at stated periods, clean and neat, with smiling faces. She little knows how (in the majority of instances) the poor little creatures are coerced, by nursery discipline, not to betray their real feelings for the woman who has them under her influence day and night.

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[Sidenote: And gives the reason why.]

At one time, when I walked daily in Hyde Park, I constantly met a nurse whose behaviour to the children under her charge excited my greatest indignation. If one of the little ones lagged behind with the nursemaid, or whimpered, because it was cold or tired, the head-nurse would shake it by the arm, or strike it across the head with such violence as to upset its equilibrium, and her voice at all times was harsh and repellent. I knew it would be useless to speak to her, but one day I followed her home to a house in Park Lane, and, sending up my card, asked if I could speak to the mistress of it. The flunky informed me she was Lady--let us say, "the Lord knows who"--and I was presently admitted to her presence. I did not stand on ceremony with "Lady the Lord knows who." I told her I made no excuse for disturbing her, because if she loved her children she would be very much obliged to me for telling her, from my personal observation, that she had (unconsciously no doubt) trusted them to the care of a woman who was not fit to take charge of a dog. Her ladyship heard me to the end, and then, rising grandly, touched the bell for her flunky and said, "Many thanks for the trouble you have taken, but I have the utmost confidence in my attendants." And so I was bowed out again. How many parents live with the little children they have brought into the world? How many teach them, or explain to them, all they want to know? It is too much trouble! All that sort of thing is delegated to hirelings. How often has one heard an intelligent child snubbed for the very questioning which should be encouraged! The bright, eager little brain, just opening, as it were, to all the wonders of living, is bursting to know the why and wherefore of everything it sees, and for answer to its excited enquiries it only gets such rebuffs as "Don't worry!" "Hold your tongue!" "If you don't behave yourself I'll send you out of the room." Which of us who have brains cannot remember the heart-sickening feeling of having in some unconscious manner done wrong by asking questions which our elders were probably too ignorant to answer? And then followed the intense longing to be "grown-up," and independent. Can't we all remember that longing to be "grown-up?" Is it not in itself an answer to the question if childhood is not a miserable period, except perhaps for a favoured few?

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[Sidenote: Phillpotts temporises.]

I fail to see how you can assert or deny upon this question. There are thousands of happy children in the world, and thousands as miserable as any grown-up person. It depends entirely upon those responsible for the individual infant; and a babe's environment is really unimportant, because, before intelligence sets in, a child wants little more than warmth and good food, and general looking after. At that early period the human young are on much the same level as cats and dogs. My dog is just as happy as the Prince of Wales's Pomeranian, because I satisfy him; social distinction has no charm for him; bones and literary society are sufficient for a creature devoid of conscious intelligence. In the same way an infant may be happy at a workhouse, perhaps even more so than in a Park Lane nursery--if there are such things as Park Lane nurseries. But it is when intellect dawns, and a child is able himself to say whether he is happy or unhappy, that he becomes interesting. Then, as before, his measure of joy or sorrow must depend upon those fellow-creatures who form his society. Probably the rule that obtains of men and women holds good of children also: the less brain power the more happiness. Intellect--especially a growing intellect--will give a child lightning flashes of joy denied to his more thick-headed brother; but much sorrow must also result from his extra intelligence. If he rises higher, he will sink far lower, too. The placid, ordinary youth thinks less, and digests his food better, and has a pleasanter time, on the whole. A sensitive child feels with a keen freshness that only years can blunt. To see some fool of a man crushing a clever child is heart-rending. By curious, misguided instincts, children always look up to their full-grown companions; and the result is, that any adult ass can nip in the bud precious childish fancies, or make fatuous and crushing replies to childish inquiries, which show in themselves the trembling dawn of an intellect far superior to his own.

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[Sidenote: And says that clever men loathe childhood.]

As a rule, you will find that clever men look back at their childhood with lively loathing, while the average Briton, if Heaven has given him enough memory to recall his earliest youth at all, says that it was all right as far as he can remember. In my own small case (and, after all, personal experience is never uninteresting--to the person), I can say that until I went to a day-school at the age of seven, or it may have been less, I had a fairly good time. Open air has a great deal to do with happiness in a child--open air and plenty of wholesome food, and satisfactory parents. Not that the victim cares overmuch for rice-puddings or a good mother; but these things leave their mark. As to mothers, I should say they have got more men and women into Heaven than any bishop, priest, deacon, or professional Churchman whatsoever. Personally, I am still here, and should be the last to make sure of anything, or count my own chickens before they are hatched, but I have the privilege of knowing men and women, to the number of at least five, who are undoubtedly bound for Golden Shores; and it was their mothers' doing in every case. Fathers, too, have their significance, but it is purely temporal, and never much concerns an infant until the child reaches that advanced platform of intelligence whereon questions concerning pocket-money arise.

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[Sidenote: Mrs. Panton thinks it _ought_ to be the happiest.]

There would be no difficulty whatever in replying to the question, if it runs, "_Should_ childhood be the happiest or most miserable period of our existence?" because, I am sure, we should one and all agree that it most certainly should: for we have no cares then, no responsibilities; our clean pinafores are worn without the least notice of what they cost to wash; our dinners, if unappetising, are regular, and, if they are not paid for, do not weigh upon either our minds or our bodies; while we neither look forward nor backward, and enjoy our existence from day to day with all the freedom from care and anxiety which, we suppose, characterises the life of a puppy or a kitten. But all this presupposes that we are not in the group of tyrants, either in the nursery, schoolroom, or dining-room, and that those who have charge of us remember their own days of childhood: recollect all the dreams, threats, and fancies which can turn them into a period of absolute torture; and, above all, consider that a child is not a sheet of plain blank paper, but that it is a composite arrangement of all the ancestors that one can remember, and of many that one cannot: for unless this is so, no words of mine can describe the misery that can be inflicted on a sensitive, dreamy child, who, to a certain extent, is heavily handicapped in the race of life by the feeble vitality which, as a rule, accompanies such a disposition, and who all too often is made a liar by harsh dealing, and an invalid in life by the hardening process, so dear to the hearts of so many fathers, mothers, and governesses. If, on the contrary, a child is carefully studied--if it be regarded as one by itself and not a sample of a batch, which must be just as are its brothers and sisters--I maintain that childhood must be the very happiest time that we can have: the dreams and happenings, which fill our nights and days, make both equally delightful, while if we are tired to death by lessons and the daily walk, we soon grow out of this, because we can build our own castles in the air out of the driest possible task, and make long and elaborate romances for ourselves out of the--most likely very commonplace--people we meet on our morning scamper. Then, too, was there not the never-to-be-forgotten joy of the yearly visit to the sea, and an equally well-loved return to our usual routine in London, to say nothing of the fascinations of making up one's mind on the subject of what one was going to be, and how one was to benefit and astonish a world that up to the present time has not seemed quite to come up to our expectations on the subject? Undoubtedly then I say, if the child is in proper hands, that childhood is the happiest time we can possibly have.

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[Sidenote: Barry Pain says childish happiness is a delusion.]

I have never understood the feelings of those who are sorry that they are full-grown. To different children there is, of course, a different childhood; but, as a rule, the happiness of childhood is a delusion, and the peace of the perambulator a myth. I believe that any brave and intelligent man can count on the fingers of one hand the things that would really hurt him seriously; the longer you live, the more you realise how few things are really important. But the troubles of childhood are numberless. The agony of terror is alone enough to make childhood the most miserable part of one's existence. The dead came out of their graves and walked into my nursery by night; I dared not open my eyes lest I should see them. There was a waiting figure behind every curtain in dim-lit passages. There were pictures in books that haunted me; I knew two or three of them well--I knew the page on which they came. I opened the book and turned almost up to the dreaded page, and then waited; but I had to go on always. I had to see the eyes staring into mine, and the lips writhing. Then I shut the book quickly, and went away to do something or other that would take my mind away from the picture. I am glad that I am grown-up; I should not care to endure such maddening terrors again. I was far too much ashamed of them then to speak of them; that made them worse. I think that no one who, as a child, was afraid of the dark, would look back upon childhood as the pleasantest period of his life. And, if a child has more troubles than a man, he undoubtedly has fewer pleasures. A child's pleasures are mostly due to its love of acquisition, its vanity, or its appetite being temporarily satisfied. From its natural affection for its parents or friends--if that affection is very strong--it gets far more suffering than pleasure. Any man of average intelligence can do better than that; he has work that interests him, books, or music, or pictures that mean far more to him than any child's pleasure means to the child. It is easy to love children; one of the chief reasons is that pity is akin to love. And on this question of the unhappiness of childhood, I would sooner trust a man's memory than a child's direct statement.

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[Sidenote: Barr is sorry for the small boy.]

The small boy, poor little chap, lives under the most galling despotism that exists on the face of the earth. There is no court of appeal for him. His father is at once his judge, his opposing counsel, his public prosecutor, as it were, his jailer, and his executioner. Every man is a natural tyrant. It has taken centuries of bloodshed and martyrdom on the part of the oppressed to obtain even the poor semblance of liberty that we flatter ourselves we possess. Kings have been beheaded, thrones have been overturned, cities have been given to the flames, and countries have suffered pillage and rapine, all to knock it into the head of that tyrannical brute, man, that, on the whole, it is better not to force his despotism on his fellow-creatures. Yet, human nature has not changed in the least, and where man has full sway, he is as much a tyrant to-day as he was five hundred years ago. Nations have been emancipated, but the kingdom of which the small boy is a subject remains what it always was. Nature, who is a well-meaning blunderer, has tried to set things right, first by planting some natural affection for his small boy into the stony heart of the parent, and, second, by making the small boy himself an optimist. Happily, there is always a silver lining to the cloud that hovers over the small boy, even when the cane is descending upon him. Trifles please the poor little fellow and help him to forget the gloom which surrounds him. Coventry Patmore, in that most touching poem, "The Toys," tells of a father who struck his motherless son, and sent him weeping to bed, and, being tardily remorseful, the father looked at the sleeping boy, whose undried tears were still on his cheek, and found that before going to sleep the stricken lad had arranged his trivial toys, all the cherished possessions of his pocket, so that his eyes might rest on them "to comfort his sad heart."

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[Sidenote: But the future small boy will have still more trouble.]

The small boy does not gain much when he exchanges the tyranny of the home for the tyranny of the school. The schoolmaster is naturally a despot, but he is a despot, limited. To make up for any advantages accruing from the master's limitations, the urchin has to put up with the bullying of the big boy. Possibly there are teachers who have human feelings, as far as the small boy is concerned. We read of such persons in books like "Tom Brown's Schooldays," but it must not be forgotten that these books are works of fiction. The lad who wrote that his master was a beast, but a just beast, may not have been exceptionally lucky, but it is sad to think that the small boy often comes under the dominion of beasts who are not just. But even if masters were all that could be desired, think of the amount of perfectly useless knowledge that a small boy is expected to acquire. How happy was the small boy of 1065 compared with the small boy of 1893. When William the Conqueror, with a man's usual heedlessness of the comfort of small boys, came over in 1066 and popularised that date, he inaugurated a long succession of useless dates that the small boy is compelled to learn. Every monarch has had four figures attached to him, like a picture in an exhibition. Yet was there ever a man stopped in the streets of London, and suddenly confronted with the question, "What year did Henry VIII. come to the throne?" Certainly not. A man would be considered insane who expected any rational being to burden his mind with such trivialities. Yet the small boy is caned if he doesn't know. The only consolation I can offer the unfortunate small boy of to-day is that it will be ever so much worse for the small boy born 3000 years from now. Every day, objectionable and thoughtless men are discovering new things. Then dates will keep accumulating just as they have always been in the habit of doing. Possibly a new specimen of that detestable type of humanity, Euclid, will arise, and perhaps some conscienceless villain may invent a more complicated system of mathematics than algebra. You never can tell what may happen in 3000 years. So the small boy of 1893 may congratulate himself that he is not the small boy of 4893.

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[Sidenote: Mrs. Fenwick Miller thinks it depends upon the parents.]