and life. It is this helpless inequality--this untimeliness--that makes
the guileless comedy mingling with the tragedies of a poor child's day.
He knows thus much--that life is troubled around him and that the fates
are strong. He implicitly confesses "the strong hours" of antique song.
This same boy--the tempestuous child of passion and revolt--went out with
quiet cheerfulness for a walk lately, saying as his cap was put on, "Now,
mother, you are going to have a little peace." This way of accepting his
own conditions is shared by a sister, a very little older, who, being of
an equal and gentle temper, indisposed to violence of every kind and
tender to all without disquiet, observes the boy's brief frenzies as a
citizen observes the climate. She knows the signs quite well and can at
any time give the explanation of some particular outburst, but without
any attempt to go in search of further or more original causes. Still
less is she moved by the virtuous indignation that is the least charming
of the ways of some little girls. _Elle ne fait que constater_.
Her equanimity has never been overset by the wildest of his moments, and
she has witnessed them all. It is needless to say that she is not
frightened by his drama, for Nature takes care that her young creatures
shall not be injured by sympathies. Nature encloses them in the innocent
indifference that preserves their brains from the more harassing kinds of
distress.

Even the very frenzy of rage does not long dim or depress the boy. It is
his repentance that makes him pale, and Nature here has been rather
forced, perhaps--with no very good result. Often must a mother wish that
she might for a few years govern her child (as far as he is governable)
by the lowest motives--trivial punishments and paltry rewards--rather
than by any kind of appeal to his sensibilities. She would wish to keep
the words "right" and "wrong" away from his childish ears, but in this
she is not seconded by her lieutenants. The child himself is quite