GROWN-UP CHILDREN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1957, 23 May 1889, Page 31

GROWN-UP CHILDREN.

There is the grown-up girl who has a weakness for dolls. She wishes she could , renounce them for ever ; but she can't. The | girl of this kind has always at least one doll ! saved up,' since the days of the nursery. She only keeps jt in a drawer; but she won't part with it. One of them—in her first London season— was reminded by her mother that the old doll ought to be given away. "Give away my Peggyolina!" she exclaimed ; " you might as well ask me to give away a piece of myself." -So she kept' Peggyolina triumphantly; and in her next season in town bought a dolls' house of gigantic size, merely because she had seen it in a window, and having perceived that all the dolls' room had real doors that opened with real knobs, she found that She could not live without it.

These doll-loving girls are soft, gentle, and [winning. They, mostly, have a fine amount of character of a tender,' womanly sort. Of . course nobody knows about the doll upstairs in the drawer, or the dolls' house in the dis,used schoolroom; but one does know that' a certain depth and a sweet spice of originality are in the girl one sees, She is not vain, or the thought that is spent on the relic of childhood would be spent on herself instead. She is true— true even to her old toys. Of « course there is a medium in all things, and there is an unfortunate extreme to this character. There was a bride elect, tall and 19, who found that she had to pack her trousseau and startfor lndia with hernewlord andmaster ; and she has never been able to tell her lord and master that she had nine dolls, i Strangely enough — in these days, when the children's hospitals are always ready to, take in old toys^-she never' thought of giving her large family away ; she resolved to destroy them. But how? To bum them seemed cruel. The kindest way seemed to be to drown tthem ; "so, as he was staying at the seaside, she took the nine tlown to the beach and put them to float on the ebbing tide. But when she saw the dear creatures bobbing up and down, the girl waded in and fished them out again." After her humane efforts to restore them, wiser heads suggested that they should be given away. There is at' present living a learned professor at one of the universities who is noted for being for a childish temper. He has a string of letters after his name,' and he has written more than one treatise that is held as a high authority in his special branch of science. He is easily amused, and easily vexed ; and when he is vexedhe pouts.

Other learned men have something of the child ahout them in a very different way. To be childish' is a folly, but to be child-like is a gift; and they, with all their, height of in-

teHeoCare Bometlme^^gift^wJtK: ¥OT^: like spirit.. They have, in; these. cases j ao - ;- strong a. sense of. truth that ,theK ; ordinary talk isdirect andsjmple,tp,tjie last degree^ or shall ,iwe -ssty,, the brightest -degree. With them there is no arrierepensee \jQJk, speak ,to. them, and jthey , speak , with ; ,the straight honesty of children. They, do no)b , pretend to.knowall about everything, as men of smaller minds do ; they tjell yop of what they are ignorant' and ask about it., , Theie perfect, sense 6$ truth allows no waste, of words; they say willingly, what they^would like you to hear, and you may ask .whatever you wish. Friendship with a noble,mind, of this type has one, quality in common with,, friendships madejyvith children;. it ripens afc once. You see the man once, and you re* , member him always. , . , .' There is another class of grown-up chil« dren — those who by loving, children very much have become hi 3ome way like, them—* not those who care for their own children only, but those who are free citizens of child* world, and make a habit of fraternising with its inhabitants. Stooping to, con verse withlittle ones and to answer their, innocent thoughts, they themselves come back to our world with a sweet scent of childhood about them. Unconsciously their looks and tones, and ways give traces of a likeness, to, the children that they love ; just asafter.coming from a foreign land we bring, a rfaint suspicion of its accent in our speech. . . < In conclusion, one may take it as a rule that there is something lovable in grownyap children. They are easily pleased, direct, in. speech, and ready, as the phrase goes, .to, "take to" the friends they meet. And. surely these are qualities , worth caring for, What is more, they are qualities within the. reach of us all. We cannot imitate grown* up children; imitation becomes mimicry. But we can be really child-like— and .we all remember who told us to tr-y.-r-" Leisuro

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