around her, but she is hardly articulate; the book is full of words—­preachings, speeches, daily talk, aphorisms, but a space of silence remains about her in the midst of the story.  And the disproportion of passion—­the inner disproportion—­is at least as tragic as that disproportion of fate and action; it is less intelligible, and leads into the intricacies of nature which are more difficult than the turn of events.

It seems, then, that this passionate play is acted within the narrow limits of a child’s nature far oftener than in those of an adult and finally formed nature.  And this, evidently, because there is unequal force at work within a child, unequal growth and a jostling of powers and energies that are hurrying to their development and pressing for exercise and life.  It is this helpless inequality—­this untimeliness—­that makes the guileless comedy mingling with the tragedies of a poor child’s day.  He knows thus much—­that life is troubled around him and that the fates are strong.  He implicitly confesses “the strong hours” of antique song.  This same boy—­the tempestuous child of passion and revolt—­went out with quiet cheerfulness for a walk lately, saying as his cap was put on, “Now, mother, you are going to have a little peace.”  This way of accepting his own conditions is shared by a sister, a very little older, who, being of an equal and gentle temper, indisposed to violence of every kind and tender to all without disquiet, observes the boy’s brief frenzies as a citizen observes the climate.  She knows the signs quite well and can at any time give the explanation of some particular outburst, but without any attempt to go in search of further or more original causes.  Still less is she moved by the virtuous indignation that is the least charming of the ways of some little girls. Elle ne fait que constater.  Her equanimity has never been overset by the wildest of his moments, and she has witnessed them all.  It is needless to say that she is not frightened by his drama, for Nature takes care that her young creatures shall not be injured by sympathies.  Nature encloses them in the innocent indifference that preserves their brains from the more harassing kinds of distress.

Even the very frenzy of rage does not long dim or depress the boy.  It is his repentance that makes him pale, and Nature here has been rather forced, perhaps—­with no very good result.  Often must a mother wish that she might for a few years govern her child (as far as he is governable) by the lowest motives—­trivial punishments and paltry rewards—­rather than by any kind of appeal to his sensibilities.  She would wish to keep the words “right” and “wrong” away from his childish ears, but in this she is not seconded by her lieutenants.  The child himself is quite willing to close with her plans, in so far as he is able, and is reasonably interested in the results of her experiments.  He wishes her attempts in his regard to have a fair chance.  “Let’s hope I’ll be good all to-morrow,” he says with the peculiar cheerfulness of his ordinary voice.  “I do hope so, old man.”  “Then I’ll get my penny.  Mother, I was only naughty once yesterday; if I have only one naughtiness to-morrow, will you give me a halfpenny?” “No reward except for real goodness all day long.”  “All right.”