On Hindhead, last Easter, we saw a family wash hung out to dry. There
were papa’s two great night-shirts and mamma’s two lesser night-gowns and
then the children’s smaller articles of clothing and mamma’s drawers and
the girls’ drawers, all full swollen with a strong north-east wind. But
mamma’s night-gown was not so well pinned on and, instead of being full
of steady wind like the others, kept blowing up and down as though she
were preaching wildly. We stood and laughed for ten minutes. The
housewife came to the window and wondered at us, but we could not resist
the pleasure of watching the absurdly life-like gestures which the
night-gowns made. I should like a _Santa Famiglia_ with clothes drying
in the background.
A love story might be told in a series of sketches of the clothes of two
families hanging out to dry in adjacent gardens. Then a gentleman’s
night-shirt from one garden, and a lady’s night-gown from the other
should be shown hanging in a third garden by themselves. By and by there
should be added a little night-shirt.
A philosopher might be tempted, on seeing the little night-shirt, to
suppose that the big night-shirts had made it. What we do is much the
same, for the body of a baby is not much more made by the two old babies,
after whose pattern it has cut itself out, than the little night-shirt is
made by the big ones. The thing that makes either the little night-shirt
or the little baby is something about which we know nothing whatever at
all.