A PRISCILLA DIALOGUE.
There is probably some way by which a young female child can be led through easy stages of Socratic dialogue to the idea of ultimate truth in morals as well as art. There is probably some way of talking to such a child without being badly scored off. But I do not seem to have the gift. This is the more unfortunate because the thing usually happens before I have finished my breakfast, and nothing is quite so damaging to my self-esteem as to be soundly snubbed in my own house before the day's work has begun.
Mind you I do not honestly believe that my logic is at fault. I believe that there is usually a flaw in the reasoning of the child. But you cannot very well say to an infant of three, "You are now being guilty of an undistributed middle or a petitio elenchi or whatever it is." She would do what I have heard even older women do in like circumstances. She would change the subject at once. Perhaps the Montessori system ... But let us take a typical case.
I found her sitting at a large table by the dining-room window, in a high chair that left her red shoes eighteen inches from the ground, a complete doll's tea service in front of her and a small stuffed lamb on her right-hand side. The tea-pot appeared to contain real water and the sugar-basin real sugar, and although she was supremely busy watering and sugaring and rearranging her cups and jugs and spoons she greeted me with the composure of an experienced châtelaine. Our conversation went something like this:—
She. Will you have any cup of tea?
I (having drunk a small cup of water with a very little real sugar and a large quantity of real grit in it.) Thank you. How delicious! But I must go and have my breakfast now.
She (taking no notice at all and offering me a small fragment of moist toast). Will you have any piece of cake?
I. Thank you. What lovely plum-cake!
She (with infinite scorn). Ho! that isn't plum-cake. There isn't any plums in it. It's choclat cake.
I (humiliated). Oh, well, I don't think I will have any more tea, thank you.
She (coldly). I'm going to give my lamb tea now.
[The method of giving tea to a lamb, in case it is not generally known, is to plaster the lamb's nose with spoonfuls of sugar and then lick off the sugar with one's tongue. At least that is the way Priscilla does it.]
I (reprovingly from the breakfast-table.) What a funny way to give your lamb tea, Priscilla.
She. My lamb says he likes having his tea like this. (A longish pause.) Please will you draw me a picsher?
I. What kind of a picture?
She. A picsher of a house.
I. What kind of a house?
She (in one long breath). A purple house with a yellow roof and blue curtains and a green door and rose-trees with red roses and hollyhocks and a dear little pussy-cat and a motor-car coming up the drive.
[This is executed in coloured crayons with a rapidity born of hunger and long practice, and passed to the Hanging Committee for inspection.]
She (examining it critically). Ho! that isn't a door.
I. Yes, it is, Priscilla. It's a very nice door.
She. It isn't a door. It hasn't any knocker.
[After all, when is a door not a door? I finish the joinery job and carry on with my bacon.]
She (suddenly). There isn't any sun.
[I sketch in the regulation pattern of circular sun, with eyes, a nose and a smile complete.]
She. That isn't a sun. It hasn't any hair.
I. The sun doesn't have any hair, Priscilla.
She (decisively). Nurse has hair.
[This really seems unanswerable. Having amended Phœbus Apollo I start in with my marmalade. After a lapse of a few minutes a low hammering is heard from somewhere on the floor at the far side of the table.]
I. Whatever are you doing, Priscilla?
She. Sooing my horse.
[She is discovered beating the wheels of a grey wooden flat-backed animal on a stand with a hammer procured from heaven alone knows where.]
I. Well, don't hit him on the wheels, anyhow. (A pause, subdued noises and a sigh.) What are you doing now, Priscilla?
She. Sooing him on his back.
I. Doesn't that hurt him?
She. It hurts him very much, but he doesn't say anything.
[I come round to give veterinary advice.]
I. Don't you love your horse, Priscilla?
She. Yes, he's my friendly horse.
I. Well, don't bang him about like that; all the paint's coming off him.
[The carpet is in fact bestrewn with small flakes of grey paint from the unhappy creature's flanks.]
She (derisively). Ho! that isn't paint. That's snorts.
I (helplessly). Whatever do you mean?
She. That's snorts. Snorts from his mouf. White snorts.
I. But why is your horse snorting from his mouth, Priscilla?
She. He's snorting from his mouf because I'm sooing him on his back.
Well, there you are, you know; what is one going to do about it? There is a sort of specious plausibility about these replies after all; I am no farrier, but I should think it quite likely that if you shoed a cart-horse long enough on the back with a large enough hammer he would snort white snorts from his mouth; and it's no use telling the girl that she can't jump from realism to romance in that disingenuous manner. Besides she might start hammering the wheels again. Or else she would say that her horse said he was snorting, and who am I to contradict a British horse? I used to consider myself pretty good at what are called back-answers and I still believe that with a little practice I could hold my own in Whitechapel or the House of Commons, but there are subtle transitions about Priscilla's method of argument with which only a Prime Minister could cope. It carries too many guns for me. It cramps my style.
V.