“That is a new way of putting it. We oldsters soon forget how to play, alackaday!”
She went on calmly. “Work that you really love isn’t work any more—it’s play.”
“That’s a little deep for me—”
“It’s true, though, so you’d better try to understand. If you paint a picture and work at it,—slave over it and are not happy doing it,—then your picture is only so many pennies’ worth of paint. The cruelest thing people can say of a book or a picture is, ‘Well, he worked hard at it!’ The spirit of mischief is only the spirit of play; and the spirit of play is really the spirit of the work we love.
“It’s too bad that you are not always patient with us,” the Spirit continued. (I noted the plural. Clearly Jessamine and the Spirit were one!)
“I’m sorry, too,” I answered contritely.
“The laws of the foolish world do not apply to childhood at all. Children are born into a condition of ideality. They view everything with wonder and awe, and you and all the rest of the grown-up world are busy spoiling their illusions. How happy you would be if you could have gone on blowing bubbles all your days!”
“True, alas, too true!”
The face of the Spirit grew suddenly very old.
“Life,” she said, “consists largely in having to accept the fact that we cannot do the things we want to do. But in the blessed days of mischief we blow bubbles in forbidden soap and water with contraband pipes—and do not know that they are bubbles!”