CHILDREN'S UPS AND DOWNS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—From sundry communications received from some (at least quondam) lady-friends, I am apprehensive of becoming a latter-day Pentheus; for I am in danger, not only of falling a victim to female ferocity, but, alas! of being torn in pieces through a mere misconception. In the Spectator of January 7th a member of my own sex has joined the ranks of my assailants in a letter entitled " The Alleged Want of Pity in Children." Now, I have never denied that children are often sensitive, nay, over-sensitive. But I contend that their sensitiveness is liable to have great " ups and downs "; and, in a word, that (if I may use such a metaphor) the temperature of their pity will occasionally, like that of the Miltonic devils, alternate suddenly between being too hot and too cold. An example will best show what I mean. The late Professor Nettleship was once staying in a country house, where the cellar was infested with rats. A terrier was sent down to do execution among the offenders. The Pro- fessor saw a rat worried near a little girl who was standing on the cellar-steps. "Poor little rat," cried the child in deep compassion; but she asked eagerly, almost in the same breath, "Is there another ?" Now, not only am I not con- ducting what might be termed an anti-ptedic crusade, but I freely admit that tender and attractive qualities have the preponderance in children, especially in little girls. Why, then, it will be asked, are all my instances derived from the less characteristic, which is also the less pleasing, aspect of their disposition P In answering this question, I will adapt —I hope without irreverence—an illustration used by St. James. A child's mind may be likened to a fountain which sometimes sends forth sweet water and bitter in startlingly rapid succession. The supply of sweet water is in this instance the more copious, as it certainly is the one to be more naturally expected. But, on that very account, the occasional outbreaks of bitter water have the chief interest for the man of science.
I speak subject to correction as to the details of the blue- bottle story. It was, however, told me by two friends, who derived it from the same source, and one of whom yesterday renewed to me her assurance that it is founded on fact; indeed, she herself knew the little girl who (literally, as well as metaphorically, converso pollice) despatched her victim to the Elysium of bluebottles. The chapter of accidents has some very odd sections; and, if any such story as that now under discussion was invented in jest, the jest must have borne an accidental likeness to a real
incident.-1 am, Sir, &O., LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE. Hotel d'Angleterre, Biarritz, January 9th.
P.S.—Since writing this letter, I have heard from an old (Harrovian) schoolfellow a curious account of a mixture of sensitiveness with hardness, not in children, but in two refined young sisters belonging to the middle class, both of whom he ranks as "Nature's ladies." He asked one of them if she had any pets ; and her answer was, he believes, exactly as follows
" We have a cat. We had a very nice cat, and she had three beautiful little kittens, So I said : 'Now we must drown the old
cat and two kittens.' But my sister said: No, we will drown the old cat and one kitten '; and so we did. But. soon after, my sister stepped upon one kitten, and killed it. Oh, she did cry !"
Might not this be regarded as straining at accidental kitten- slaughter, and swallowing deliberate cat-and-kitten murder?
[No doubt children have ups and downs, but we adhere absolutely to our former statement that normal English children, unless made callous by the bad example of those around them, shrink from cruelty, and err rather from over- sensitiveness than from want of feeling.—En. Spectator.]
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