there are few days in a girl’s life more critical than the day on which the sawdust streams from the mangled carcase of her dearest doll. it is a day of bitter disillusionment, a day in which a philosophy of some kind is painfully born. the doll came into the home amidst all the excitements of a birthday. it was instantly invested with every attribute of personality. the task of naming it was as solemn a function as the business of naming a baby. and when the choice had been made, and the name selected, that name was as unalterable as though it had been officially recorded at somerset house. by that name it was greeted with delight every morning; by that name it was hushed to sleep every night; by that name it was introduced to other dolls, as well as to less important people; and by that name it was addressed a hundred times a day. the doll has suffered accidents and illnesses after the fashion of fleshier folk; but such misadventures, as is the way with humans, has only rendered her more dear. but now an accident has happened, surpassing in seriousness all previous misfortunes. 135the thing has come to pieces! the girl has a shapeless rag in her hand; the floor is all powdered with sawdust; and her face is a spectacle for men and angels. i say again that this is an extremely critical day in a girl’s life, and upon the way in which she negotiates this passage in her history a good deal will eventually depend.
i do not quite know why i have made the feminine element so prominent in my introduction. boys are just the same. they affect to deride a girl’s ridiculous weakness in cherishing so great a tenderness for a doll; but, for all their supercilious airs, they have illusions of their own. dr. samuel johnson has told us how, as a boy, he consulted the oracle as to his future fortunes. if some issue were hanging in the balance—a game to be played, or an examination to be taken—he would endeavour to wrest from the unseen the secret that it held. he would note a particular stick or stone on the path before him; and then, with face turned skywards, he would walk towards it. if he trod on the object which he had chosen, he took it as a sign that he would win the game or pass the examination that was causing him such uneasiness. if, on the other hand, he stepped clean over it, he interpreted it as a sinister prediction of disaster. dr. oliver wendell holmes confesses to a similar weakness. ‘as for all manner of superstitious observances,’ 136says the autocrat of the breakfast table, ‘i used to think i must have been peculiar in having such a list of them; but i now believe that half the children of the same age go through the same experience. no roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue of omens as i found in the sibylline leaves of my childhood. that trick of throwing a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty issues to hitting or missing, which you will find mentioned in one or more biographies, i well remember.’ and dr. holmes goes on to give us a good deal more in the same strain.
but, although they do not record it, there must have come to both dr. johnson and dr. holmes a day very similar to that on which the sawdust streamed from the mutilated doll. what about the day on which young samuel johnson, his scrofulous face and screwed-up eyes turned skywards, strode along the path towards the selected talisman, stepped plump upon it, and then lost the game that followed after all? and what about the day on which young oliver wendell holmes, impatiently awaiting his father’s return from boston, wondered if his parent would bring him the pocket-knife for which he had so long and loudly clamoured? but there, not fifty yards away, was a tree; and here, at his feet, was a stone. ‘if i hit it, he’ll bring it; if i miss it, he won’t!’ he cried; and, taking more 137than usually careful aim, he threw the stone, and missed! but the pocket-knife was in his father’s handbag all the same! boys or girls, men or women, it matters not; there come into our lives great and memorable days when we have to take farewell of our illusions. our romances leave us. there comes a christmas day on which, to our uttermost bewilderment, we discover the secret history of santa claus. and very much will depend upon the way in which we face such sensational and eye-opening experiences.
we go through life leaving these shattered romances behind us. our track is marked by the spatter of burst bubbles. what then? and in answer to that ‘what then?’ the obvious temptation is the temptation to cynicism. since the doll has turned out to be a mere matter of sawdust and rags, since the talisman on the footpath told a lie, since the oracle of tree and stone deceived us, we make up our minds to fling to the scrap-heap such cherished beliefs as we still retain. we go in for a severe weeding out of everything that is imaginative, everything that is mystical, everything that is romantic. life resolves itself into a dreary wilderness of matter-of-fact, an arid desert of common sense. dr. oliver wendell holmes was wiser. referring to his oracular stone-throwing and the rest of it, he says, ‘i won’t swear that i have not some tendency to these unwise practices even at 138this present date. with these follies mingled sweet delusions, which i loved so well that i would not outgrow them, even when it required a voluntary effort to put a momentary trust in them.’ it is a pity to sweep all our rainbow-tinted romances out of life simply because one of them has been reduced to the terms of rag and sawdust.
there stands before me as i write sir john millais’ great picture of ‘bubbles.’ both the picture and the experience that it portrays are wonderfully familiar. the curly head; the upturned face; the entire absorption of the little bubble-blower in the shining balls that he is hurling into space; the half-formed hope that this one, at least, may not sputter out and become an unbeautiful splash of soapsuds on the floor; the wistful half-expectancy that now, at last, he has created a lovely globe that shall float on and on, like a little fairy-world, for ever and for evermore. it is all in the picture, as every beholder has observed; and it is all in life. it is the first tragedy of infancy; it is the last tragedy of age. bubbles; bubbles; bubbles; and yet what would the world be without bubbles? they burst, of course; but we are the happier for having blown them! our dreams may never come true; but it’s lovely to dream! illusions are part of life’s treasure-trove. when they go, they leave nothing behind them. when we lose them, we lose 139everything. it is almost better to become criminal than to become cynical. to be criminal implies an evil hand; but to be cynical reveals a very evil heart. it is a thousand times better to be blowing bubbles that, though fragile, are very fair than to move sulkily about the world telling all the blowers of bubbles that their beautiful bubbles must burst. ‘i want to forget!’ cried the poor little ‘lady of the decoration.’ ‘i want to begin life again as a girl with a few illusions!’ every fool knows that bubbles must burst. the man who feels it necessary to tell this to everybody proves, not that he possesses the gift of prophecy, but that he lacks the saving grace of common sense. the world would clearly be very much the poorer, and not one scrap the richer, if no bubbles were left in it. it is altogether wholesome to have a fair stock of illusions.
but at this point two serious questions press for answer. if illusions are so good, why do they fail us? why are our bubbles permitted to burst? the question answers itself. if all the bubbles that had ever been blown were still floating about the world, there would be nothing so commonplace as bubbles. that is why the era of miracles ceased. it was a very romantic phase in the church’s childhood, and it answers to the superstitious element in our own. but we may easily exaggerate its value. if the age of miracles had been indefinitely lengthened, 140the effect would have been the same as if all the bubbles became everlasting. if all the bubbles that had ever been blown were with us still, who to-day would want to blow bubbles? and if miracles had once become commonplace, their charm and significance would have instantly vanished. ‘i am persuaded,’ martin luther sagely declares, ‘that if moses had continued his working of miracles in egypt for two or three years, the people would have been so accustomed thereunto, and would have so lightly esteemed them, that they would have thought no more of the miracles of moses than we think of the sun or the moon.’ it would not be hard to prove that even the miracles of the new testament tended to lose their effect. the amazement of the disciples at beholding what they took to be a ghost on the water is attributed to the fact that ‘they considered not the miracle of the loaves’ which had taken place a few hours earlier. a miracle was already so much a matter of course that the memory no longer treasured it as something phenomenal. no pains were taken to investigate its significance. it would have been a tragedy unspeakable if the miraculous element in the faith had become universally contemptible. as the eagle carefully builds the nest in which her eaglets are to see the light, and afterwards as carefully destroys it so that they may be forced to fly, so our illusions 141are made for our enjoyment, and then dashed to pieces under our very eyes. our childhood was enriched beyond calculation by the fine romances that gave it such bright colours; and, in exactly the same way, the childhood of the church was glorified by the wonder-workings of a hand invisible.
and the other question is this: what shall we do when our illusions leave us? when the doll turns out to be sawdust and rag, when the youthful oracle speaks falsely, when the bubble bursts, what then? and again the answer is obvious. why, to be sure, if one romance fails us, we must get a better, that is all! any man who has not been soured by cynicism will confess that the romantic tints in the skein of life have deepened, rather than faded, as the years passed on. surely, surely, the romance of youth was a lovelier thing than the romance of childhood! when a girl feels how silly it is to play with dolls, she begins to think of other things that will more appreciate her fondling. when a boy sees that it is senseless to throw stones at trees as a means of deciding his destiny, he takes to tossing precious stones and pretty trinkets in quite other directions, but with pretty much the same end in view. and so the romance of life—if life be well managed—increases with the years, until, by the time we become grandfathers and grandmothers, the world seems too wonderful for 142us, and we stand and gaze bewildered at all its abounding surprises. everything depends on filling up the gaps. as soon as the sawdust streams out of the doll, as soon as the futility of the oracle stands exposed, we must make haste to fill the vacant place with something better.
long, long ago there were a few jewish christians who felt just as a girl feels when the component parts of her dearest doll suddenly fall asunder, just as samuel johnson felt when the talisman prophesied falsely, just as oliver wendell holmes felt when he saw that he could trust his oracle no more. they felt—those hebrew believers—that everything had gone from them. ‘to how great splendour,’ says dr. meyer, ‘had they been accustomed—marble courts, throngs of white-robed levites, splendid vestments, the state and pomp of symbol, ceremonial and choral psalm! and to what a contrast were they reduced—a meeting in some hall, or school, with the poor, afflicted, and persecuted members of a despised and hated sect!’ but the writer of the epistle addressed to them makes it his—or her—principal aim to point out that it is all a mistake. just as a girl’s richest romance follows upon the disillusionment of the terrible sawdust, so the wealthiest spiritual heritage of these jewish christians comes to them in place of the things that they were inclined to lament. ‘for,’ says the writer, 143‘ye have come unto mount sion, and unto the city of the living god, the heavenly jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to god the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of abel.’ and whoever finds himself the heir of so fabulous a wealth can well afford to smile at all his earlier disappointments.
