It is awful to
think of the essential human energy moving so tiny a thing; it is like
imagining that human nature could live in the wing of a butterfly or the
leaf of a tree. When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we
feel as if we ourselves were enlarged to an embarrassing bigness of
stature. We feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that a
deity might feel if he had created something that he could not
understand.
But the humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all
the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is
more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for
all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and
lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their
fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of
the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven.
* * * * *
A DEFENCE OF DETECTIVE STORIES
In attempting to reach the genuine psychological reason for the
popularity of detective stories, it is necessary to rid ourselves of
many mere phrases. It is not true, for example, that the populace prefer
bad literature to good, and accept detective stories because they are
bad literature.
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