I
say written FOR children because the new
psychological business of writing ABOUT them as though
they were small pills or hatched in some
especially scientific method is extremely popular
today. Writing for children rather than about
them is very difficult as everybody who has tried
it knows. It can only be done, I am convinced,
by somebody having a great deal of the child
in his own outlook and sensibilities. Such was
the author of "The Little Duke" and "The
Dove in the Eagle's Nest," such the author of
"A Flatiron for a Farthing," and "The Story
of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author of
"Alice in Wonderland." Grownups imagine
that they can do the trick by adopting baby
language and talking down to their very critical
audience. There never was a greater mistake.
The imagination of the author must be a child's
imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that
the White Queen in "Alice," for instance, is
seen just as a child would see her, but she
continues always herself through all her distressing
adventures. The supreme touch of the white
rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he hastens
is again absolutely the child's vision, but the
white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice's
adventures belongs to mature grown insight.
Geniuses are rare and, without being at all
an undue praiser of times past, one can say without
hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh
Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs.
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