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

Child's Play 241
ality of the whole affair, as it seems to
children, is a thing we are all too ready to
forget " O, why," I remember passionately
wondering, "why can we not all be happy
and devote ourselves to play?" And when
children do philosophise, I believe it is
usually to very much the same purpose.
One thing, at least, comes very clearly out
of these considerations ; that whatever we
are to expect at the hands of children, it
should not be any peddling exactitude about
matters of fact. They walk in a vain show,
and among mists and rainbows ; they are
passionate after dreams and unconcerned
about realities ; speech is a difficult art not
wholly learned ; and there is nothing in their
own tastes or purposes to teach them what
we mean by abstract truthfulness. When a
bad writer is inexact, even if he can look
back on half a century of years, we charge
him with incompetence and not with dis-
honesty. And why not extend the same
allowance to imperfect speakers ? Let a
stockbroker be dead stupid about poetry, or