TWO BOOKS ON CHILDREN.*
THE usual fault of children's books is that the facts are seen in a wrong focus. That is, the grown-up person, with his head in the air, determines to adopt the attitude of mind of a child, but forgets the difference that attitude and altitude of body make in a mental point of view. At 6ft. from the ground things look of a size quite diffrrent from that of the same objects viewed at 4 ft. from the ground. And grown-up people have horribly unsound views of the great world of Make Believe. Even Mr. Crockett in his great romance, Sir Toady Lion, occasionally seems to be laughing in his sleeve at his hero. He has, indeed, two heroee,—one who gives his name to the book, and the other, the elder brother of the first, round whom the fortunes of the story hang. "Hugh John," alias General Napoleon Smith, is perhaps an even more successful creation that his younger brother; but the whole household of "Windy Standard" is most cleverly drawn.
• (L) Sir Toady Lion By B. B. Crockett. London: Gwrdner. Darton. and Co. Conssrnsng Toddy. By Mrs. Murray Hickson. London: Janos Bowden.
The book, though dealing with quite conceivable incident in the ante-school days of an ordinary English boy, is filled with "hairbreadth 'scapes " and adventures, and these are told with a sense of fun which it is to be hoped will escape the eyes of child readers. Grown-up people will complain that there is too much fighting, and that the fighting is of too serious a kind, and perhaps the example of the Homeric conflicts between the army under Hugh John and the "Smoutchy " boys is too attractive to be altogether wholesome. The bone of contention is an old castle in the grounds of Hugh John's father, which castle is claimed as theirs by the town folks. After many adventures, imprison.- ment in the deepest dungeon of the keep, &c., Hugh John seeks the alliance of the gipsies' boys, and sends a formal challenge to battle to the opposing forces :— " Wtndy Standard House, Bordershire. MISTR. NIPPR. DONNAN, Esqr., DEAR SIR,—This is to warn you that on Saturday the 18th, between the hours of ten in the morning and six in the evening, we, the rightful owners of the Castle of Windy Standard, will take possession of our proppaty. Prevent us at your peril. You had better get out, for we're coming, and our motty is "Smith for ever, and No Quarter !" Given under our hand and seal.
(Signed) NAPOLEON SMITH, General-Feeld-Marshall-Commanding. teach you to kick my legs with tacketty butes and pit me in nasty dunguns. Wait till I catch you, Nipper Dorman!
"The reply came back on a piece of wrapping paper from the butcher's shop, rendered warlike by undeniable stains of gore. It had to all appearance been written with a skewer, and contrasted ill with the blue official paper purloined out of Mr. Picton Smith's office, on which the challenge had been sent. It ran thus :— "'MATTHEW DONNAN & Co., Butchers and Cattle Salesmen, 21 High Street, Edam, Bordershire.
'DEAR SIR,—Yours of the 13th received, and contents noted. Come on, you stuck-up retches. We can fight you any day with our one hand tied behind us. Better leave girls and childer at home, for we meen fightin' this time—and no error.—We'll nook you into eternal smash.
'Hoping to be favoured with a continuance of your esteemed orders,—I have the honour to remain, Sir, your obedient servant
to command. N. DONNAN.t " The above cartels result in a fearful fight, in which, needless to say, the right prevails, and the " Smotitchy " boys are defeated with great slaughter. Since it appears that as yet the world cannot get on without fighting, there is perhaps no harm in stories like this of alarms and excursions, provided there is nothing which General Napoleon Smith himself would have called " dasht-mean" about them. But why does Mr. Crockett introduce a sort of immature love affair at the end of the book ? The affaires de cceur of young gentlemen who have not yet left school are much better undescribed, and when it comes to sentimental accounts of broken six- pences one can only hope that child readers will skip the chapter as containing "a lot Of awful rot about love-making ! " Does Mr. Crockett really think that boys of sixteen and seventeen are to be encouraged in sentimental and serious love- making ?
Turning to Mrs. Murray Hickson's book, Concerning Teddy, it is curious to record how the solemn and deliberate opinion of the reviewer has been overturned and set at nought by the nursery critic. 'Here,' said the fatuous grown-up judgment, is a book with real insight into children's minds—free from the slight exaggeration of Mr. Crockett's amusing work— altogether an admirable book.' But one evening the nursery critic caught sight of the exciting pictures in Sir Toady Lion, and, seizing on the book, read it breathlessly and unwink- ingly at every spare moment. " Teddy " was then submitted to the same impartial judge, who, after reading it fitfully for some days, forgot to finish it. This, of course, may have been owing to the absence of the combative element as strongly marked both in Sir Toady Lion and in the above. mentioned nursery critic. Dr. Johnson always declared that " Babies do not want to hear about other babies," — an opinion which we have frequently combated in these columns. But, in a measure, the "great lexicographer" (as Miss Pinkerton loved to call him) was right. Babies like to hear about the Babe Heroic, and love to fancy themselves enduring his hardships and battling through his adventures. But as for the baby who lives in a nursery, just as they do, and has roast mutton and sago pudding at 1 o'clock, this subject is decidedly connu. Therefore, a minute and delicate analysis of the child's mind is appreciated chiefly by the child's parents. After all, is not this what we all look for in fiction.-.4o be able to picture our own potential noble deeds in the exciting, heroic, or pathetic circumstances of the puppets dancing in front of us ? The young lady in Janet's Repentance, who always dressed in the style most becoming to the heroine of the current novel, and the hero of Stevenson's Wrong Box, who asked himself in every difficulty "what Robert Skill" (the detective-hero of his own novel) would have done, are types of us all. In childhood we imagine our deeds of prowess on desert islands, in combats with savages, and the intelligent answers with which we should have confounded the familiars of the Inquisition. Also our invariable firmness under torture. In youth we figure as hero or heroine of countless sentimental adventures. What woman has not, in reading Vanity Fair, pictured how she would have treated Dobbin had she been Amelia ? Later on we hunt big game and adventures with Mr. Rider Haggard, discover mysteries with Sherlock Holmes, or in society novels appear as the slightly passe dens ex faachinii who extracts all the young people from their foolish difficulties. At this stage, scant sympathy is shown with the blushing heroine of seventeen. Later still, since no one was ever specially tempted to pose as the heavy parent, the whole field of fiction becomes ours, for our sympathy is entirely reminiscent. It is as easy at sixty-five to fancy one- self twelve as twenty, and once again the adolescent hero and the budding miss become interesting.
Mrs. Hickson's book is not one in which the small boy or girl is anxious to pose as hero or heroine, and therefore its most sympathetic audience will be the child that was rather than the child that is. To the man or woman who is no longer ashamed of the affection they lavished, long after the proper age, on their oldest, ugliest, and baldest doll, the account of the auto.da-fe of the superannuated " Weezer " (whose full name was Louise de la Vallie re) is full of pathos. At twelve the matter has a different aspect. " Weezer " has been sacrificed too recently for the account to be amusing; or perhaps, shameful to relate, " Weezer" is still unsa.crificed ! But people who like to remember what they felt and did as children will thoroughly enjoy Mrs. Hickson's book, which is full of delicate intuitions about the children she writes of. Or perhaps the intuitions are really memories. To most of us, to look back on our childhood is like looking at a magic lantern,—darkness, and then a series of vivid pictures in which the little "I" stands out as distinct a figure as the rest. Yet some people seem to keep a connected memory of the long days, the interminable griefs, and the vivid pleasures which belonged to the morning of life. Perhaps Mrs. Hick- son is one of these. At any rate, we feel after reading her book that she thoroughly understands and appreciates the children she is depicting.
Previous page
