excited enquiries it only gets such rebuffs as
"Don't worry!" "Hold your tongue!" "If you don't behave yourself I'll
send you out of the room." Which of us who have brains cannot remember
the heart-sickening feeling of having in some unconscious manner done
wrong by asking questions which our elders were probably too ignorant to
answer? And then followed the intense longing to be "grown-up," and
independent. Can't we all remember that longing to be "grown-up?" Is it
not in itself an answer to the question if childhood is not a miserable
period, except perhaps for a favoured few?

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Phillpotts temporises.]

I fail to see how you can assert or deny upon this question. There are
thousands of happy children in the world, and thousands as miserable as
any grown-up person. It depends entirely upon those responsible for the
individual infant; and a babe's environment is really unimportant,
because, before intelligence sets in, a child wants little more than
warmth and good food, and general looking after. At that early period
the human young are on much the same level as cats and dogs. My dog is
just as happy as the Prince of Wales's Pomeranian, because I satisfy
him; social distinction has no charm for him; bones and literary society
are sufficient for a creature devoid of conscious intelligence. In the
same way an infant may be happy at a workhouse, perhaps even more so
than in a Park Lane nursery--if there are such things as Park Lane
nurseries. But it is when intellect dawns, and a child is able himself
to say whether he is happy or unhappy, that he becomes interesting.
Then, as before, his measure of joy or sorrow must depend upon those
fellow-creatures who form his society. Probably the rule that obtains of
men and women holds good of children also: the less brain power the more
happiness. Intellect--especially a growing intellect--will give a child
lightning flashes of joy denied to his more thick-headed brother; but
much sorrow must also result from his extra intelligence. If he rises
higher, he will sink far lower, too. The placid, ordinary youth thinks
less, and digests his food better, and has a pleasanter time, on the
whole. A sensitive child feels with a keen freshness that only years can
blunt. To see some fool of a man crushing a clever child is
heart-rending. By curious, misguided instincts, children always look up
to their full-grown companions; and the resu