“No more to be bought for money than a good conscience or the Victoria cross.”
“You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it.”
“It is not good for little boys to be told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits.”
“And so if you do not know that things are wrong, that is no reason why you should not be punished for them; though not as much, my little man (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), as if you did know.”
“I am quite sure that she knows best. Perhaps she wishes people to learn to keep their fingers out of the fire by having them burned.”
“I always forgive people the minute they tell me the truth of their own accord.”
“But even they were no foolisher than some hundred scores of papas and mamas; who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to a doctor.”
VII. Life-like Characters. The great storyteller makes his characters seem like human beings. The reader can almost see them; at any rate, he feels that he knows them and that they are real, not merely life-like. It is hard to understand how the author accomplishes the wonderful feat (for it is the most wonderful thing about story writing), and it is much more difficult to tell how it is done. One word here, a clear descriptive phrase there, and Tom, or the Squire, or the old schoolmistress, or Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid with her awkward name, has become so much of a personality that you cannot forget if you would. Certainly one of the fine things about Tom, the Water Baby is the living reality of its characters, which appeals universally to young and old, even in the first reading of the story.
VIII. The Writer’s Art. It will add something to a child’s interest in the story if his attention is called to the skilful way in which Kingsley handles his plot. It is high art to throw into the early part of the story the conversation between the keeper and Grimes. It shows that Grimes is a poacher and known to be one. The keeper is inclined to wink at the offense, but still he feels that a warning is necessary. Nothing more is said about poaching till much later, where Tom, the Water Baby, sees Grimes meet a poacher’s death.
Again, it is early evident that Grimes has done other wicked things and that the poor Irishwoman knows of one at least. She even mentions Vendale, but the reader attaches no importance to it. Tom flees to Vendale and is pitied and kindly treated by the old Schoolmistress, but it is not until Tom finds Grimes suffering his punishment in the chimney flues that the reader learns what the poor Irishwoman knew about Grimes, and that the schoolmistress was Grimes’s poor ill-treated mother.