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 the