In that dry, ugly, depressing book, Harry and Lucy, which I used to
read in my youth, there is a terrible father, kind, virtuous,
conscientious, whose one idea seems to be to encourage the children
to amass correct information. The party is driving in a chaise
together, and Lucy begins to tell a story of a little girl, Kitty
Maples by name, whom she has met at her Aunt Pierrepoint's; it
seems as if the conversation is for once to be enlightened by a ray
of human interest, but the name is hardly out of her lips, when the
father directs her attention to a building beside the road, and
adds, "Let us talk of things rather than of people." The building
turns out to be a sugar-refinery, or some equally depressing
place, and the unhappy children are initiated into its mysteries.
What could be more cheerless and dispiriting? Lucy is represented
as a high-spirited and somewhat giddy child, who is always being
made aware of her moral deficiencies.
One looks forward sadly to the time when nature has been resolutely
expelled by a knowledge of dynamics and statics, and when Lucy,
with children of her own, will be directing their attention away
from childish fancies, to the fact that the poker is a lever, and
that curly hair is a good hygrometer.
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