Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/745

 b6be who has a gramophone in her chest which emits noises, by courtesy termed words. But enough of modern reaHsm. The wise mother will not look upon her little girl's doll play as beneath her notice. She will watch the pretended joys and sor- rows which are the founda- tions of the doll games. For the child who loves dolls lends her soul to the doll, and as the mind is forming all her thoughts are given to the games, so that they will accurately reflect the pro- gress of the child's character. In a dozen cases in toy history of the world character has been foreshadowed in play. I take but one in- stance — Jane Welsh Carlyle, who had so many oppor- tunities of sacrificing her CHILDREN with dolls, therefore the doll must die, and in a classic manner. While the last speech of Dido was recited, the doll's bed and dresses, with cedar pencils, and a stick of cinna- mon as spice for the funeral j)yre, were set alight, the little mother st.abbing the doll with her penknife. But the student of Virgil had over-rated her power of endurance or unncr-rated her love for the doll, for when the flames frizzled Dido's hair and twisted the arms and legs and spurted out the bran stuffing, sc that Dido seemed to suffer, Jane screamed with anguish of mind, and had to be forcibly conveyed to the house, lest the neighbours should be disturbed. Undoubtedly doll play is the sake of her husband's eccentricity and genius, showed in her doll play her passion for usefulness and personal deprivation. Even with her dolls she tried to act the stoic, for which she was not well equipped. At the age of ten years, having been promoted to the learning of Latin, she thought that it was no longer seemly to play i^ own desires in after life for S™£d'f:.r«1 tXt' i'lSl.^HH, fostered by the natural ' tendency for imitation of other people's ways, and there seems to be in the child an intense pleasure in getting away from authority and getting someone else into subjection. The large place occupied by washings and hair-brushings in doll rites is not alone accounted for by the love of cleanli- ness in the child ; it is owing to the delight in inflicting the irrita- tions on someone else that nurse so often inflicts on the child. The more the doll resembles the child the. better for the game. But, so vivid is a child's imagination, that natural defici- ences in form and structure in no way diminish the doll's popularity. That doll soon becomes a real living being in the child's eyes, and for this reason little girl dolls are more popular than little bov dolls. Her doll the child wants as a companion, in whose presence she can throw off all her natural reserve and shyness. In the illustrations are shown some dolls whose form and ap- pearance mark stages in the evolution of taste and fashion in Doll of the crinoline period ; carved wood hands and -^^iq mystcrioUS WOrld f^''*"*^^^ Toy soldier, early 18th body head and hair of composition moulded in one. ^r j^ii i„„j century; dressed in leather, 22 inches in height. OtdOU-lana. brocAde and silvw lace. 8 in. hiah