es, no babies--

[Illustration: Babies seem so dissatisfied]

I wonder, by the way, why most babies find existence so miserable?
Convicts working on roadways, stout ladies in tight shoes and corsets,
teachers of the French language--none of these suffering souls wail in
public; _they_ don't go around with puckered-up faces, distorted and
screaming, and beating the air with clenched fists. Then why babies? You
may say it's the nurse; but look at the patients in hospitals. They put
up not only with illness, but nurses besides. No, babies are
unreasonable; they expect far too much of existence. Each new generation
that comes takes one look at the world, thinks wildly, "Is _this_ all
they've done to it?" and bursts into tears. "You might have got the
place ready for us," they would say, only they can't speak the language.
"What _have_ you been doing all these thousands of years on this planet?
It's messy, it's badly policed, badly laid out and built--"

Yes, Baby. It's dreadful. I don't know why we haven't done better. I
said just now that you were unreasonable, but I take it all back.
Statesmen complain if their servants fail to keep rooms and kitchens in
order, but are statesmen themselves any good at getting the world tidied
up? No, we none of us are. We all find it a wearisome business.

Let us go to that country I spoke of, the one round the corner. We
stroll through its entrance, and we're in Theatrical-Land.

A remarkable country. May God bless the man who invented it. I always am
struck by its ways, it's so odd and delightful--

"But," some one objects (it is possible), "it isn't real."

Ah, my dear sir, what world, then, _is_ real, as a matter of fact? You
won't deny that it's not only children who live in a world of their own,
but debutantes, college boys, business men--certainly business men, so
absorbed in their game that they lose sight of other realities. In fact,
there is no one who doesn't lose sight of some, is there? Well, that's
all that the average play does. It drops just a few out. To be sure,
when it does that, it shows us an incomplete world, and hence not the
real one; but that is characteristic of humans. We spend our lives
moving from one incomplete world to another, from our homes to our clubs
or our offices, laughing or grumbling, talking rapidly, reading the
paper, and not doing much thinking outside of our grooves. Daily life is
more comfortable, somehow, if you narrow your vision. When