Yet C. was very far from being wholly absorbed in himself and his own interests. It cannot be said indeed that self monopolised the intensest of his feelings, for he felt just as strongly for others too. There was, we are told, a marked development of sympathy during this year. His sister was now away from home at school, and the absence seems to have drawn out kindly feeling. So that when, on one occasion (middle of seventh month), his father and aunt were going to visit her, and to take her to the Crystal Palace, though he wanted dreadfully to go himself, he made a great effort, and in answer to his father’s question, what message he had for his sister, answered a little tremulously, “Give her my love,” and then, waxing more valiant, added, “I hope she will enjoy herself at Crystal Palace”.
Some months later (end of ninth month), he proved himself considerate for his father, whose repugnance to noises has already been alluded to. A man had come to repair a window and his father had been forced to stop his work and to go out. On his return C. met him in the garden and asked him loudly, evidently so that the man might hear, “Does that man disturb you, papa?” He had previously talked to his mother in an indignant way about the noises which disturbed his father. About a fortnight after this, on hearing some children make an uproar in the passage, he asked indignantly, “What are those children about, making papa not do his work?” “He was at this time,” writes the father, “transferring some of that chivalrous protection which he first bestowed on animals to his own kith and kin. He became to me just at this time something of a guardian angel.”
His compassion for the lower creation had meanwhile by no means lessened. Here is a story which shows how the killing of animals by human hands still tortured his young heart. One day (towards end of fourth month) he was looking at his beloved picture-book of animals. Apropos of a picture of some seals he began a talk with his mother in the usual way by asking her a question.
C. “What are seals killed for, mamma?”
M. “For the sake of their skins and oil.”
C. (turning to a picture of a stag). “Why do they kill the stags? They don’t want their skins, do they?”
M. “No, they kill them because they like to chase them.”
C. “Why don’t policemen stop them?”
M. “They can’t do that, because people are allowed to kill them.”
C. (loudly and passionately). “Allowed, allowed? People are not allowed to take other people and kill them.”