I have lost all count
of their names and ages, their comings and goings; but Maggie never
makes a mistake about them, and they seem to her like real people;
and when I sometimes plunge them into disaster, she is so deeply
affected that the disasters have all to be softly repaired. The
Pickfords must have had a very happy life; the kind of life that
people created and watched over by a tender, patient and detailed
Providence might live. How different from the real world!
But I don't want Maggie to live in the real world yet awhile. It
will all come pouring in upon her, sorrow, anxiety, weariness, no
doubt--alas that it should be so! Perhaps some people would blame
me, would say that more discipline would be bracing, wholesome,
preparatory. But I don't believe that. I had far rather that she
learnt that life was tender, gentle and sweet--and then if she has
to face trouble, she will have the strength of feeling that the
tenderness, gentleness and sweetness are the real stuff of life,
waiting for her behind the cloud. I don't want to. disillusion her;
I want to establish her faith in happiness and love, so that it
cannot be shaken. That is a better philosophy, when all is said and
done, than the stoical fortitude that anticipates dreariness, that
draws the shadow over the sun, that overvalues endurance.
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