Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/245

Rh she read some of these very papers—"listening without the weariful gesture, hearing them to the end, and giving his comment 'That woman thinks! Domus Angusta, Hours of Sleep, At Monastery Gates—the sentences in these, limpid and sweet, are distillations of wisdom—mountain-honey, a succession of pure drops. And the Essays on Childhood, which form the last section of the book, are coffers of clear observation, probably unique in their fine faithfulness, made in that little kingdom where all the dwellers have consciousnesses terribly easily bruised, and where the presence of a register so wonderfully sensitive, quite unhardened and unblurred, can give guidance of the most instant human value to us whose apprehensions are more dull. "To attend a living child," says Mrs. Meynell, "is to be baffled in your humour, disappointed of your pathos, and set freshly free from all preoccupations. … You are the fellow-traveller of a bird. The bird alights and escapes out of time to your footing."