When his ruthless angers are not in possession the child shows the growth of this tardy reason that—­quickened—­is hereafter to do so much for his peace and dignity, by the sweetest consideration.  Denied a second handful of strawberries, and seeing quite clearly that the denial was enforced reluctantly, he makes haste to reply, “It doesn’t matter, darling.”  At any sudden noise in the house his beautiful voice, with all its little difficulties of pronunciation, is heard with the sedulous reassurance:  “It’s all right, mother, nobody hurted ourselves!” He is not surprised so as to forget this gentle little duty, which was never required of him, but is of his own devising.

According to the opinion of his dear and admired American friend, he says all these things, good and evil, with an English accent; and at the American play his English accent was irrepressible.  “It’s too comic; no, it’s too comic,” he called in his enjoyment; being the only perfectly fearless child in the world, he will not consent to the conventional shyness in public, whether he be the member of an audience or of a congregation, but makes himself perceptible.  And even when he has a desperate thing to say, in the moment of absolute revolt—­such a thing as “I can’t like you, mother,” which anon he will recant with convulsions of distress—­he has to “speak the thing he will,” and when he recants it is not for fear.

If such a child could be ruled (or approximately ruled, for inquisitorial government could hardly be so much as attempted) by some small means adapted to his size and to his physical aspect, it would be well for his health, but that seems at times impossible.  By no effort can his elders altogether succeed in keeping tragedy out of the life that is so unready for it.  Against great emotions no one can defend him by any forethought.  He is their subject; and to see him thus devoted and thus wrung, thus wrecked by tempests inwardly, so that you feel grief has him actually by the heart, recalls the reluctance—­the question—­wherewith you perceive the interior grief of poetry or of a devout life.  Cannot the Muse, cannot the Saint, you ask, live with something less than this?  If this is the truer life, it seems hardly supportable.  In like manner it should be possible for a child of seven to come through his childhood with griefs that should not so closely involve him, but should deal with the easier sentiments.

Despite all his simplicity, the child has (by way of inheritance, for he has never heard them) the self-excusing fictions of our race.  Accused of certain acts of violence, and unable to rebut the charge with any effect, he flies to the old convention:  “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he avers, using a great deal of gesticulation to express the temporary distraction of his mind.  “Darling, after nurse slapped me as hard as she could, I didn’t know what I was doing, so I suppose I pushed her with my foot.”  His mother knows as well as does Tolstoi that men and children know what they are doing, and are the more intently aware as the stress of feeling makes the moments more tense; and she will not admit a plea which her child might have learned from the undramatic authors he has never read.