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

242 Child's Play
a poet inexact in the details of business, and
we excuse them heartily from blame. But
show us a miserable, unbreeched, human
entity, whose whole profession it is to take a
tub for a fortified town and a shaving-brush
for the deadly stiletto, and who passes three-
fourths of his time in a dream and the rest
in open self-deception, and we expect him
to be as nice upon a matter of fact as a
scientific expert bearing evidence. Upon
my heart, I think it less than decent. You
do not consider how little the child sees, or
how swift he is to weave what he has seen
into bewildering fiction ; and that he cares
no more for what you call truth, than you
for a gingerbread dragoon.
I am reminded, as I write, that the child
is very inquiring as to the precise truth of
stories. But indeed this is a very different
matter, and one bound up with the subject of
play, and the precise amount of playfulness,
or playability, to be looked for in the world.
Many such burning questions must arise in
the course of nursery education. Among