C. “Yes, she does. When I say yes she says no, and I know that I am
right.”
He talked of this same experience of feminine frailty to others,
remarking to one of his lady friends that E. had not said a sensible
thing all the week he was staying with her. He also attacked his father
on the subject, and after illustrating her odd way of contradicting
others, he observed: “She’s are never as sensible as he’s, I suppose,
are they, papa? especially if a boy is older”.
The father asked him if he had shown his displeasure to his girl
playmate, to which he replied: “I didn’t show my angriness;” and after a
pause: “I’d better not show how angry I can be, I’m too strong and too
big, ain’t I?” As a matter of fact he had once, at least, been so
ungallant as to strike his companion on her nose with one of his toys,
selecting this objective for his attack apparently for no other reason
than that it was already disfigured by a scratch. He wound up this
disquisition on E.’s shortcomings by an attempt at a magnanimous
allowance for her weakness: “I b’lieve she tries not to say these things
because she knows they will tease me, but I think she can’t help it;”
and he repeated this as if to emphasise the point.
Even our much-biassed chronicler is obliged to own that all this is a
lamentable exhibition of boyish swagger, and particularly out of place
in one born in these enlightened days, when, as we all know, ‘she’s’ are
as good as ‘he’s,’ if not a great deal better. The only palliation of
the unpleasant picture of coxcombry which he offers is the information
that a year or too later C.’s views about girls were profoundly modified
when he found himself in a school where a girl of his own age could beat
him at certain things of the mind.
The growing vigour of his self-consciousness was shown in other ways
too. He was much hurt by anything which seemed to him an invasion of his
liberty. About the end of the sixth month, we read, he had got into
‘finicking’ ways of taking his food. Thus he conceived a strong dislike
for the ‘cream’ on his boiled milk. If anybody attempted to cross him in
these faddish ways he would be greatly offended. It looks as if he were
at this time getting a keen sense of private rights, any interference
with which he regarded as an offence.
The story about what he would do if his family were ship-wrecked
suggests that self-sacrifice was as yet not a strong element in the
boy’s moral constitution. Egoism, it might well seem, was still the
foundation of his character. This egoism would peep out now and again in
his talk. One day (middle of eighth month) when the family was lodging
in a cottage his mother had reason to scold him for walking on the
flower-beds in the cottage garden. Whereupon he answered: “It isn’t your
garden, it’s Mr. G.’s”. To this the mother observed: “I know, dear, but
I have to be all the more particular because it is not mine”; which
observation drew forth the following: “I should think Mr. G. would be
all the more particular because it is his”. It was evident, writes the
father, from this somewhat cynical observation that caring for things
and resenting any injury to them seemed to C. to devolve on the owner
and on nobody else.
He himself certainly did repel any encroachment on his rights. Here is
an amusing illustration. One day (the end of seventh month) he was
playing on the Heath under the eye of his mother. He had put on one of
the seats a lot of grass and sand as fodder for his wooden horse. While
he went away for a minute a strange nurse and children arrived, making a
perfectly legitimate use of the bench by seating themselves on it, and
in order to get room brushing away the precious result of his foraging
expedition. On coming back and seeing what had happened he turned to his
mother and swelling with indignation exclaimed loudly: “What do you mean
by it, letting these children move away my things?” Of course this was
intended to intimidate the real culprits, the children. Finding that
they were not abashed at this, but on the contrary were looking at one
another with a look of high-bred astonishment, he turned to them and
shouted: “What do you mean by it?” This outburst, observes the father,
showed a preternatural heat of indignation, for in general he was very
distant and reserved towards strange children.
Yet C. was very far from being wholly absorbed in himself and his own
interests. It cannot be said indeed that self monopolised the intensest
of his feelings, for he felt just as strongly for others too. There was,
we are told, a marked development of sympathy during this year. His
sister was now away from home at school, and the absence seems to have
drawn out kindly feeling. So that when, on one occasion (middle of
seventh month), his father and aunt were going to visit her, and to take
her to the Crystal Palace, though he wanted dreadfully to go himself, he
made a great effort, and in answer to his father’s question, what
message he had for his sister, answered a little tremulously, “Give her
my love,” and then, waxing more valiant, added, “I hope she will enjoy
herself at Crystal Palace”.
Some months later (end of ninth month), he proved himself considerate
for his father, whose repugnance to noises has already been alluded to.
A man had come to repair a window and his father had been forced to stop
his work and to go out. On his return C. met him in the garden and asked
him loudly, evidently so that the man might hear, “Does that man disturb
you, papa?” He had previously talked to his mother in an indignant way
about the noises which disturbed his father. About a fortnight after
this, on hearing some children make an uproar in the passage, he asked
indignantly, “What are those children about, making papa not do his
work?” “He was at this time,” writes the father, “transferring some of
that chivalrous protection which he first bestowed on animals to his own
kith and kin. He became to me just at this time something of a guardian
angel.”
His compassion for the lower creation had meanwhile by no means
lessened. Here is a story which shows how the killing of animals by
human hands still tortured his young heart. One day (towards end of
fourth month) he was looking at his beloved picture-book of animals.
_Apropos_ of a picture of some seals he began a talk with his mother in
the usual way by asking her a question.