M——. "Then how comes it that the wind does not blow always the same way?"
S——. "Aye, that's the thing I can't make out; besides, perhaps the air would stick to the earth as it turns round, as threads stick to my spinning top, and go round with it."
(January 4th, 1795.) As we were talking of the king of Poland's little dwarf, S—— recollected by contrast the Irish giant whom he had seen at Bristol. "I liked the Irish giant very much, because," said S——, "though he was so large, he was not surly; and when my father asked him to take out his shoe-buckle to try whether it would cover my foot, he did not seem in a hurry to do it. I suppose he did not wish to show how little I was."
Children are nice observers of that kind of politeness which arises from good nature; they may hence learn what really pleases in manners, without being taught grimace.
Dwarfs and giants led us to Gulliver's Travels. S—— had never read them, but one of the company now gave him some general account of Lilliput and Brobdignag. He thought the account of the little people more entertaining than that of the large ones; the carriage of Gulliver's hat by a team of Lilliputian horses, diverted him; but, when he was told that the queen of Brobdignag's dwarf stuck Gulliver one day at dinner into a marrow bone, S—— looked grave, and seemed rather shocked than amused; he said, "It must have almost suffocated poor Gulliver, and must have spoiled his clothes." S—— wondered of what cloth they could make him new clothes, because the cloth in Brobdignag must have been too thick, and as thick as a board. He also wished to know what sort of glass was used to glaze the windows in Gulliver's wooden house; "because," said he, "their common glass must have been so thick that it would not have been transparent to Gulliver." He thought that Gulliver must have been extremely afraid of setting his small wooden house on fire.
M——. "Why more afraid than we are? His house was as large for Gulliver as our house is for us."
S——. "Yes, but what makes the fire must have been so much larger! One cinder, one spark of theirs would have filled his little grate. And how did he do to read their books?"
S—— was told that Gulliver stood at the topmost line of the page, and ran along as fast as he read, till he got to the bottom of the page. It was suggested, that Gulliver might have used a diminishing glass. S——immediately exclaimed, "How entertaining it must have been to him to look through their telescopes." An instance of invention arising from contrast.
If the conversation had not here been interrupted, S—— would probably have invented a greater variety of pleasures and difficulties for Gulliver; his eagerness to read Gulliver's Travels, was increased by this conversation. We should let children exercise their invention upon all subjects, and not tell them the whole of every thing, and all the ingenious parts of a story. Sometimes they invent these, and are then interested to see how the real author has managed them. Thus children's love for literature may be increased, and the activity of their minds may be exercised. "Le secret d'ennuyer," says an author[117] who never tires us, "Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire." This may be applied to the art of education. (V. Attention, Memory, and Invention.)
(January 17th, 1796.) S——. "I don't understand about the tides."