The chair he has just been besieging as a castle is taken
away for the accommodation of a morning visitor and he is nothing abashed;
he can skirmish by the hour with a stationary coal-scuttle; in the midst
of the enchanted pleasuance he can see, without sensible shock, the
gardener soberly digging potatoes for the day's dinner."
The child, in fact, is neither undeveloped "grown-up" nor unspoiled angel.
Perhaps he has a dash of both, but most of all he is akin to the grown
person who dreams. With the dreamer and with the child there is that
unquestioning acceptance of circumstances as they arise, however unusual
and disconcerting they may be. In dreams the wildest, most improbable and
fantastic things happen, but they are not so to the dreamer. The veriest
cynic amongst us must take his dreams seriously and without a sneer,
whether he is forced to leap from the edge of a precipice, whether he
finds himself utterly incapable of packing his trunk in time for the
train, whether in spite of his distress at the impropriety, he finds
himself at a dinner-party minus his collar, or whether the riches of El
Dorado are laid at his feet. For him at the time it is all quite real and
harassingly or splendidly important.
To the child and to the dreamer all things are possible; frogs may talk,
bears may be turned into princes, gallant tailors may overcome giants,
fir-trees may be filled with ambitions.
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