ost useful thing he could do
Would be to come back and romp with children.

M. V.

An almost elvish little girl with loose brown hair, doing
needlework. I have spoken to her once or twice.
I think I must get another book of the same size as this
to make notes about her.

From the Christmas party at Overroads all adults were excluded--no
nurses, no parents. The children would hang on Gilbert's neck in an
ecstasy of affection and he and Frances schemed out endless games for
them. Gilbert had started a toy theatre before he left London,
cutting out and painting figures and scenery, and devising plots for
plays. Two of the favourites were "St. George and the Dragon" and
"The Seven Champions of Christendom."

The atmosphere of Overroads is perhaps best conveyed through
Gilbert's theories concerning his toy theatre and the other
theatricals such as Charades sometimes played there. When it came to
the toy theatre set up to amuse the children, he frankly felt that he
was himself child No. 1 and got the most amusement out of it. He felt
too that the whole thing was good enough to be worth analysing in its
rules and its effects. And so he drew up a paper of rules and
suggestions for its use.

I will not say positively that a toy-theatre is the best of
theatres; though I have had more fun out of it than out of any other.
But I will say positively that the toy-theatre is the best of all
toys. It sometimes fails; but generally because people are mistaken
in the matter of what it is meant to do, and what it can or cannot be
expected to do; as if people should use a toy balloon as a football
or a skipping rope as a hammock. . . .

Now the first rule may seem rather contradictory; but it is quite
true and really quite simple. In a small theatre, because it is a
small theatre, you cannot deal with small things. Because it is a
small theatre it must only deal with large things. You can introduce
a dragon; but you cannot really introduce an earwig; it is too small
for a small theatre. And this is true not only of small creatures,
but of small actions, small gestures and small details of any
kind. . . . All your effects must be made to depend on things like
scenery and background. The sky and the clouds and the castles and
the mountains and so on must be the exciting things; along with other
things that move all of a piece, such as regiments and processions;