The young women of Addison are nearly fourteen years old.  His fear of losing the idea of the bloom of their youth makes him so tamper with the bloom of their childhood.  The young heiress of seventeen in the Spectator has looked upon herself as marriageable “for the last six years.”  The famous letter describing the figure, the dance, the wit, the stockings of the charming Mr. Shapely is supposed to be written by a girl of thirteen, “willing to settle in the world as soon as she can.”  She adds, “I have a good portion which they cannot hinder me of.”  This correspondent is one of “the women who seldom ask advice before they have bought their wedding clothes.”  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.  His little sister of a year older seemed thoroughly to enjoy the humour of the situation.  “Listen to him, mother.  He’s trying to talk like God.  He often does.”

Bulls are made by a less imaginative child who likes to find some reason for things—­a girl.  Out at the work of picking blackberries, she explains, “Those rather good ones were all bad, mother, so I ate them.”  Being afraid of dogs, this little girl of four years old has all kinds of dodges to disguise her fear, which she has evidently resolved to keep to herself.  She will set up a sudden song to distract attention from the fact that she is placing herself out of the dog’s way, and she will pretend to turn to gather a flower, while she watches the creature out of sight.  On the other hand, prudence in regard to carts and bicycles is openly displayed, and the infants are zealous to warn one another.  A rider and his horse are called briefly “a norseback.”