Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

100 Crabbed Age and Youth
more difficult than to put the thoughts of
children into the language of their elders ;
but this is the effect of his meditations at
this juncture : " Plainly," he said, " I must
give up my playthings, in the meanwhile,
since I am not in a position to secure myself
against idle jeers. At the same time, I am
sure that playthings are the very pick of life ;
all people give them up out of the same
pusillanimous respect for those who are a
little older ; and if they do not return to
them as soon as they can, it is only because
they grow stupid and forget I shall be
wiser ; I shall conform for a little to the
ways of their foolish world ; but so soon as
I have made enough money, I shall retire
and shut myself up among my playthings
until the day I die." Nay, as he was passing
in the train along the Esterel mountains
between Cannes and Frejus, he remarked a
pretty house in an orange garden at the
angle of a bay, and decided that this should
be his Happy Valley. Astrea Redux ;
childhood was to come again ! The idea