we like to watch him for the mere sake of
the difficulty; we like to see his vacillations; we like this last so
much even, that I am told a really artistic tight-rope walker must feign
to be troubled in his balance, even if he is not so really. And again,
we have in these baby efforts an assurance of spontaneity that we do not
have often. We know this at least certainly, that the child tries to
dance for its own pleasure, and not for any by-end of ostentation and
conformity. If we did not know it we should see it. There is a
sincerity, a directness, an impulsive truth, about their free gestures
that shows throughout all imperfection, and it is to us as a
reminiscence of primitive festivals and the Golden Age. Lastly, there is
in the sentiment much of a simple human compassion for creatures more
helpless than ourselves. One nearly ready to die is pathetic; and so is
one scarcely ready to live. In view of their future, our heart is
softened to these clumsy little ones. They will be more adroit when they
are not so happy.

Unfortunately, then, this character that so much delights us is not one
that can be preserved by any plastic art. It turns, as we have seen,
upon consideration not really aesthetic. Art may deal with the slim
freedom of a few years later; but with this fettered impulse, with these
stammering motions, she is powerless to do more than stereotype what is
ungraceful, and, in the doing of it, lose all pathos and humanity. So
these humorous little ones must go away into the limbo of beautiful
things that are not beautiful for art, there to wait a more perfect age
before they sit for their portraits.

V

ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES

(1874)

It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we
have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one side
after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. A few
months ago some words were said in the _Portfolio_ as to an "austere
regimen in scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as
"healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the test, so to
speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be
understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet
the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood,
and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we
see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all