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

232 Child's Play
calls for imitation. The juvenile lyrical
drama, surely of the most ancient Thespian
model, wherein the trades of mankind are
successively simulated to the running burthen
*' On a cold and frosty morning," gives a
good instance of the artistic taste in children.
And this need for overt action and lay figures
testifies to a defect in the child's imagination
which prevents him from carrying out his
novels in the privacy of his own heart He
does not yet know enough of the world and
men. His experience is incomplete. That
stage- ward robe and scene-room that we call
the memory is so ill provided, that he can
overtake few combinations and body out few
stories, to his own content, without some
external aid. He is at the experimental
stage ; he is not sure how one would feel in
certain circumstances ; to make sure, he must
come as near trying it as his means permit.
And so here is young heroism with a wooden
sword, and mothers practice their kind voca-
tion over a bit of jointed stick. It may be
laughable enough just now ; but it is these