By "Burau"
The baby is a lovable type attracting abundant care and tenderness but on analysis the fullest measure of affection is reserved for the little old woman, It is amazing how the type exists and how unchanging is the standard. Age itself is not unusual. Everybody must grow old as the span of life lengthens but the old woman must be a little old woman otherwise the essential relationship to humanity's common store of affection snaps, The entire English-speaking world has sympathized with the unfortunate plight of tone old woman. As long as children are born unsophisticated and do not carry a dictionary in their hands this sympathy will continue to be manifested. This dear old lady, perhaps through what Mr, J. 0. P, Bland would call "procreative "recklessness," had too many children. /Her housing accommodation was also taxed because she lived in the lines of the general estimate for she must be a type such as is always associated with acts of kindness, something sweet and fragrant without which Barrie's artistry would languish, She would probably be like Mrs. Dewey in "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals." living in "one of those what-care-I streets you discover only when you have lost your way; on discovering them, your duty is to report them to the. authorities, who immediately add them to the map of London." She might not fit the details on the income-tax paper which Barrie uses to identify Mrs. Dewey, "Trade—charring; Profession any) caretaking,' but he certainly would have her "wearing astrakhan, and carrying the gabardine flung careless-like over her arm" as one of Mrs, Dowey's neighbouring char-women described her. "Here are the muff and the gloves and the gloves and the chiffon, and such a kind old bonnet that it makes you laugh at once; I don't know how to describe it but it i: a shoe and her trials and tribulations are narrated in the trimmed with a kiss, as bonnets should be when the wearer is old nursery rhyme which explains her eventual solution of sending them all to bed as the end of her troubles, But she must have been and frail. We must take the merino for granted until she steps out of the astrakhan." a little old woman because all the nursery rhyme books depict her as a little old woman and as everybody Knows it is very improper to deceive children by tricks or artifice because shakes their faith at a time when this characteristic should be cherished because it remains such an abiding factor in a man or woman's make-up in after History, fiction and even news tend to elevate the character of this little old woman. Of course, there have been lots of old wo-me There was Queen Elizabeth. She was not so old but no history books would convey any other impression especially when the pen is lent to the task of illustrating the text. Her character is attractive through that very display of masculine firmness and a tyrannical exercise of power, coupled.with an impetuosity of temperament which so disturbed the composure of her cour which makes her almost unfeminine but the common estimate goes that she was old. Then there was Queen Anne but she is very, very dead. There wi the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, almost cast in the same mould as our Virgin Queen, displaying a similar vigour almost mannish in intensity. This imperious figure who occupied the Dragon Throne was old. She always appeared to have been the little old woman and although other peoples might not subscribe to the estimate her people revered her under the familiar name of the "Old Buddha."
Our Prince, the Prince of Wales, has paid tribute to the little old woman, Visiting one of his tenants at Kennington, London, he noticed that a treasured vase was accidentally smashed, With that characteristic generosity which has endeared him to the world he offered to replace the vase, and he sent a ray of sunshine into the heart of the old woman by sending round a few days later a statuette of himself which undoubtedly will be even more keenly treasured because of its donor and the association. The report does not say who she is znd does not describe her appearance but she must be a little old woman.
Of the description were left to Barrie it would follow precisely That is Barrie, Dickens treats her with cynical playfulne: She could not possibly be that remarkable old lady" who e8 no more identification little Dorrit" than "Mr, F's amazing little old woman, with a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for express sion, and a stiff yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere so that it got fastened on. Another remarkable thing the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon.
It is a bizarre picture, tre ing the estimate of the little old woman with considerable disrespect and somewhat challenge ing the standard already established but this lack of chivalry is fully made up by her victorious emergence from every' encounter in the book and by that cryptic remark, uttered with bombshell effect at the dinner party at Flora's house after 155 pages of silence and not the slightest cue: "The Monument near London Bridge was put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was not the fire in which your Uncle George's workshops was burned down." But the little old woman is supreme, She dominates the book as she dominates humanity which pays cheerful allegiance in terms of affection and endearment, oves-looking her foibles, accepting her little faults as virtues and glorifying the precious bond of Kinship. The world will change and human ideas will change but the little old woman let her be enthroned with her chiffon and her astrakhan for she symbolizes. love.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.