Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/163

 Big Child, to be soothed with lollipop phrases and tickled by rattle promises. If the Big Child cries and screams because it is hungry, they chirp to it about Fair Trade,—if it complains that its ministers of religion are trying to make it say its prayers backwards, they promise a full "enquiry into recent abuses in the Church." But fine words butter no parsnips. Coward Adam always climbs up a tree as quickly as he can when instead of fine words, fine deeds are demanded. Physical feats of skill, physical gymnastics of all kinds he excels in, but a moral difficulty always places him as it did in the Garden of Eden, in what he would conventionally term "an awkward position."

"Never kiss and tell" is I believe an "unwritten law of chivalry." This law, so I understand, Coward Adam does sometimes manage to obey, albeit reluctantly. Because he would like to tell,—he would very much like to tell,—if—if the story of the kiss did not involve himself in the telling! But at this juncture "the unwritten laws of chivalry" step in and he is saved. And chivalry is the tree up which he climbs, chattering to himself the usual formula—"The woman whom thou gavest to be with me,"—etcetera, etcetera. Alas, poor woman! She has heard him saying this ever since she, in an unselfish desire to share her food with him, gave him the forbidden apple. No doubt she offered him its rosiest and ripest side! She always does,—at first. Not afterwards! As soon as he turns traitor and runs up a tree, she takes to pelting him, metaphorically speaking, with cocoa-nuts. This is quite natural on her part. She had thought him a man,—and when he suddenly changes into a