Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

“ [220] legs short off; he has to walk on his drawers.” There was no denying the extent of the catastrophe; it was on a par with that of the historic Witherington in one version of the old ballad of “Chevy chase :”

Of Witherington I needs must speak,
As one in doleful dumps;
For when his legs were smitten off
He fought upon his stumps.

But the peculiarity was that the child herself, perhaps five years old, evidently felt all the grotesqueness of her own conception.

Again, if children have no sense of humor, whence comes their admitted dramatic aptitude? So far as I have seen, this gift is far more universally distributed among children than among their elders, as any one can test by alternately getting up little dramatic performances in the younger and older circles of a large family connection. Perhaps the greater unconsciousness of children may have something to do with it, yet it really seems as if, apart from this, the imitative power were more flexible in early youth than later, as is well known to be the case with the organs of language. Nothing is more marvellous to me than the manner in which these young creatures will create for themselves, or with the very slightest aid from others, the proper tone or expression belonging to an emotion they never have experienced.