an count on the fingers of one hand the things that
would really hurt him seriously; the longer you live, the more you
realise how few things are really important. But the troubles of
childhood are numberless. The agony of terror is alone enough to make
childhood the most miserable part of one's existence. The dead came out
of their graves and walked into my nursery by night; I dared not open my
eyes lest I should see them. There was a waiting figure behind every
curtain in dim-lit passages. There were pictures in books that haunted
me; I knew two or three of them well--I knew the page on which they
came. I opened the book and turned almost up to the dreaded page, and
then waited; but I had to go on always. I had to see the eyes staring
into mine, and the lips writhing. Then I shut the book quickly, and went
away to do something or other that would take my mind away from the
picture. I am glad that I am grown-up; I should not care to endure such
maddening terrors again. I was far too much ashamed of them then to
speak of them; that made them worse. I think that no one who, as a
child, was afraid of the dark, would look back upon childhood as the
pleasantest period of his life. And, if a child has more troubles than a
man, he undoubtedly has fewer pleasures. A child's pleasures are mostly
due to its love of acquisition, its vanity, or its appetite being
temporarily satisfied. From its natural affection for its parents or
friends--if that affection is very strong--it gets far more suffering
than pleasure. Any man of average intelligence can do better than that;
he has work that interests him, books, or music, or pictures that mean
far more to him than any child's pleasure means to the child. It is easy
to love children; one of the chief reasons is that pity is akin to love.
And on this question of the unhappiness of childhood, I would sooner
trust a man's memory than a child's direct statement.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Barr is sorry for the small boy.]

The small boy, poor little chap, lives under the most galling despotism
that exists on the face of the earth. There is no court of appeal for
him. His father is at once his judge, his opposing counsel, his public
prosecutor, as it were, his jailer, and his executioner. Every man is a
natural tyrant. It has taken centuries of bloodshed and martyrdom on the
part of the oppressed to obtain even the poor semblance of liberty that
we flatter ourse