“There I think you are right. And we have our fingers on one of the weak places: Fanny tells lies out of sheer fear—moral weakness; causeless it may be, but there it is. And I’m not so sure that it is causeless; she is always in favour for good behaviour, gentleness, obedience, and that kind of thing; indeed, this want of veracity seems to me her one fault. Now, don’t you think the fear of having her parents look coldly on her and think less well of her may be, to such a timid, clinging child, a great temptation to hide a fault?”
“Very likely; but one does not see how to act. Would you pass over her faults altogether without inquiry or notice?”
“I’m afraid you must use the knife there boldly, for that is the tenderest way in the end. Show little Fan the depth of your love—that there is no fault you cannot forgive in her, but that the one fault which hurts you most is, not to hear the exact truth.”
“I see. Suppose she has broken a valuable vase and hides the fact, I am to unearth her secret—not, as I am very much inclined to do, let it lie buried for fear of involving her in worse falsehood, but show her the vase and tax her with hiding it.”
“And her immediate impulse will be to say, ‘I didn’t.’ No; make sure of your ground, then show her the pieces; say the vase was precious, but you do not mind about that; the thing that hurts you is that she could not trust her mother. I can imagine one of the lovely scenes you mothers have with your children too good for outsiders to look in upon.”
The tears came into my eyes, for I could imagine the scene too. I could see the way to draw my child closer and closer by always forgiving, always comprehending and loving her, and always protesting against the falsehood which would rise between us. I was lost in a delicious reverie—how I might sometime come to show her that her mother’s ever-ready forgiveness was but a faint picture of what some one calls the “all-forgiving gentleness of God,” when I heard John break in:—
“Yes, I can see that if we both make a point of free and tender forgiveness of every fault, on condition that she owns up, we may in time cure her of lying out of sheer fear. But I don’t see that she gets the principle of truth any more. The purely inventive lies go on as before, and the child is not to be trusted.”
“‘Purely inventive,’ there you have it. Don’t you see? The child is full of imagination, and figures to herself endless scenes, evolved like the German student’s camel. The thousand and one things which might happen are so real to her that the child is, as you said, bewildered; hardly able to distinguish the one which has happened. Now, it’s perfect nonsense to lament over this as a moral failing—it is a want of mental balance; not that any quality is deficient, but that her conceptive power runs away with her perceptive; she sees the many things that might be more readily than the thing that is. Doesn’t she delight in fairy tales?”
“Well, to tell the truth, we have thought them likely to foster her failing, and have kept her a good deal on a diet of facts.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you are wrong there. An imperious imagination like Fanny’s demands its proper nourishment. Let her have her daily meal: ‘The Babes in the Wood,’ ‘The Little Match-Girl,’ ‘The Snow-Maiden,’ tales and legends half-historic, above all, the lovely stories of the Bible; whatever she can figure to herself and live over and over; but not twaddling tales of the daily doings of children like herself, whether funny or serious. The child wants an opening into the larger world where all things are possible and where beautiful things are always happening. Give her in some form this necessary food, and her mind will be so full of delicious imaginings, that she will be under no temptation to invent about the commonplaces of every-day life.”