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

2 26 Child'' s Play
ing age, another change takes place in the
sphere of intellect, by which all things are
transformed and seen through theories and
associations as through coloured windows.
We make to ourselves day by day, out of
history, and gossip, and economical specula-
tions, and God knows what, a medium in
which we walk and through which we look
abroad. We study shop windows with other
eyes than in our childhood, never to wonder,
not always to admire, but to make and
modify our little incongruous theories about
life. It is no longer the uniform of a soldier
that arrests our attention ; but perhaps the
flowing carriage of a woman, or perhaps a
countenance that has been vividly stamped
with passion and carries an adventurous
story written in its lines. The pleasure of
surprise is passed away; sugar -loaves and
water-carts seem mighty tame to encounter ;
and we walk the streets to make romances
and to sociologise. Nor must we deny that
a good many of us walk them solely for the
purposes of transit or in the interest of a