she read some of these very papers—"listening without the weariful gesture, hearing them to the end, and giving his comment 'That woman thinks!'" Domus Angusta, Hours of Sleep, At Monastery Gates—the sentences in these, limpid and sweet, are distillations of wisdom—mountain-honey, a succession of pure drops. And the Essays on Childhood, which form the last section of the book, are coffers of clear observation, probably unique in their fine faithfulness, made in that little kingdom where all the dwellers have consciousnesses terribly easily bruised, and where the presence of a register so wonderfully sensitive, quite unhardened and unblurred, can give guidance of the most instant human value to us whose apprehensions are more dull. "To attend a living child," says Mrs. Meynell, "is to be baffled in your humour, disappointed of your pathos, and set freshly free from all preoccupations. … You are the fellow-traveller of a bird. The bird alights and escapes out of time to your footing."
For a wild hour (she says of one of her children—The Child of Tumult—a boy) he is the enemy of the laws. If you imprison him you may hear his resounding voice as he takes a running kick at the door, shouting his justification in unconquerable rage. "I'm good now!" is made as emphatic as a shot by the blow of his heel upon the panel. But if the moment of forgiveness is deferred, in the hope of a more promising repentance, it is only too likely that he will betake himself to a hostile silence and use all the revenge yet known to his imagination. "Darling mother, open the door!" cries his touching voice at last; but if the answer should be "I must leave you for a short time for punishment," the storm suddenly thunders again. "There (crash!) I have broken a plate, and I'm glad it is broken into such small pieces that you can't mend it. I'm going to break the 'lectric light." When things are at this pass there is one way, and only one, to bring a child to an overwhelming change of mind; but it is a way that would be cruel, used more than twice or thrice in his whole career of tempest and defiance. This is to let him see that his mother is troubled. "Oh, don't cry! Oh, don't be sad!" he roars, unable still to deal with his own passionate anger, which
