The uniformity of infancy passes away long before the age when children have this indefinite suffering inflicted upon them; and they have become infinitely various, and feel the consequences of the cares of their elders in unnumbered degrees.  The most charming children feel them the most sensibly, and not with resentment but with sympathy.  It is assuredly in the absence of resentment that consists the virtue of childhood.  What other thing are we to learn of them?  Not simplicity, for they are intricate enough.  Not gratitude; for their usual sincere thanklessness makes half the pleasure of doing them good.  Not obedience; for the child is born with the love of liberty.  And as for humility, the boast of a child is the frankest thing in the world.  A child’s natural vanity is not merely the delight in his own possessions, but the triumph over others less fortunate.  If this emotion were not so young it would be exceedingly unamiable.  But the truth must be confessed that having very quickly learnt the value of comparison and relation, a child rejoices in the perception that what he has is better than what his brother has; this comparison is a means of judging his fortune, after all.  It is true that if his brother showed distress, he might make haste to offer an exchange.  But the impulse of joy is candidly egotistic.

It is the sweet and entire forgiveness of children, who ask pity for their sorrows from those who have caused them, who do not perceive that they are wronged, who never dream that they are forgiving, and who make no bargain for apologies—­it is this that men and women are urged to learn of a child.  Graces more confessedly childlike they make shift to teach themselves.

FAIR AND BROWN

George Eliot, in one of her novels, has a good-natured mother, who confesses that when she administers justice she is obliged to spare the offenders who have fair hair, because they look so much more innocent than the rest.  And if this is the state of maternal feelings where all are more or less fair, what must be the miscarriage of justice in countries where a blond angel makes his infrequent visit within the family circle?

In England he is the rule, and supreme as a matter of course.  He is “English,” and best, as is the early asparagus and the young potato, according to the happy conviction of the shops.  To say “child” in England is to say “fair-haired child,” even as in Tuscany to say “young man” is to say “tenor.”  “I have a little party to-night, eight or ten tenors, from neighbouring palazzi, to meet my English friends.”