These people--the aforesaid three-fourths of our acquaintance--lay great
stress on the fact that children are free from care, as if freedom from
care were one of the beatitudes of Paradise; but I should like to know
if freedom from care is any blessing to beings who don't know what care
is. You who are careful and troubled about many things may dwell on it
with great satisfaction, but children don't find it delightful by any
means. On the contrary, they are never so happy as when they can get a
little care, or cheat themselves into the belief that they have it.
You can make them proud for a day by sending them on some responsible
errand. If you will not place care upon them, they will make it for
themselves. You shall see a whole family of dolls stricken down
simultaneously with malignant measles, or a restive horse evoked from a
passive parlor-chair. They are a great deal more eager to assume care
than you are to throw it off. To be sure, they may be quite as eager to
be rid of it after a while; but while this does not prove that care is
delightful, it certainly does prove that freedom from care is not.

Now I should like, Herr Narr, to have you look at the other side for a
moment: for there is a positive and a negative pole. Children not only
have their full share of misery, but they do not have their full share
of happiness; at least, they miss many sources of happiness to which we
have access. They have no consciousness. They have sensations, but no
perceptions. We look longingly upon them, because they are so graceful,
and simple, and natural, and frank, and artless; but though this may
make us happy, it does not make them happy, because they don't know
anything about it. It never occurs to them that they are graceful. No
child is ever artless to himself. The only difference he sees between
you and himself is that you are grown-up and he is little. Sometimes I
think he does have a dim perception that when he is sick it is because
he has eaten too much, and he must take medicine, and feed on heartless