Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/18

PREFATORY NOTE condition of the premises, which were afterwards found to have been for years in a most dangerous state. And when the child, weakened by an attack of pneumonia, took cold after cold, antimonial wine was administered continuously for a period extending into months; "enough," said Dr. George Balfour, "to ruin his constitution for life." No wonder that after a little time at play he became so feverishly excited that his toys must be removed and his playmates sent away.

My husband drew upon his memory for The Sick Child who lay awake hoping for the dawn, and listening for the sound of the morning carts that proved the weary night was almost over. Indeed, every poem in The Child's Garden was a bit out of his own childhood. He had little understanding of children in general; I remember his watching with puzzled amazement the games of a little brother and sister who were visiting us at Bournemouth. Their poverty of resource, and the spiritless way they went about their sport, were most distressing to him. When he found that they were not exceptional, but represented a pretty fair average, he exclaimed: "I see the approaching decline of England! There is something radically wrong in a generation that does not know how to play." I imagine, however, that it requires something almost like genius to play as he played, and that it was hardly fair to judge our little guests from the plane of his own childhood. 6