The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-01-06

| they cannot compete with children IN
that physical beauty which has so great
an attraction for other children. This
is the direct and spontaneous motive
which induces love, almost at first sight,
between young children themselves
Yet, except in the case of young and
lovely women, we can hardly believe
that children see much beauty in their
! female elders, or in men at ALL The
point of view from which they sac us
is against this supposition. Those who
are blessed with good looks are too tall,
| in comparison with them, ever to be
seen to advantage. To be looking up
! at giants. seeing their features fore
shortened from below, the least becon-
ing of all points for the human face,
cannot give them a pleasing impression.
Neither do we see the beauty of chill
dren to the best advantage as we look
down to their faces foreshortened from
above. That is why why the beauty Of
pretty children always appears irresist-
ibe when they are in bed, and their
faces seen as they lie on their pillows,
or even in s,eep. The astonishing
beauty of some children at such times
passes that of any other human crea-
lures; 1t is a faith freely confessed by
those who know it, and one to which
those who do not succumb with the
frankest and most ungrudging candor.
But the effect of this childish beauty,
great as it is on us, is magical when
seen by one young child in another.
Where both children are beautiful there
is perfect alteration; for so much beau
ty, and SO little to detract from it-and
very few little girls of from three to six
or seven have many failings-strikes
them as denoting almost perfection.
The physical fact that there is no dis
parity In size, that they look level into
each others faces, and see each in the
other those gifts of beauty which they
are accustomed to hear their elders 50
frankly praise, combined with those
qualities Of daintiness and refinement
for which they themselves have no
name, but which they value at their
true worth makes an irresistible appeal
to their love. Children who are so hap
Ply as to enjoy such companionship live
in kind Of fairyland They have al
most the reality of the fairy in their
friend, and fancy and Imagination, in
tensifled by the suggestions Of the other
mind which unites in make-believe,
supply the rest. These cases of love at
first sight between children do not lead
to camaraderie of the enterprising kind
or partnerships for activities in games,
or gardening, or romps, but are contem-
plative and quiet. They are content
and happy to be in each others compa-
ny, are often almost embarrassed when
they meet, love walking together hand
in hand, and find more to say of each
other when parted than do each other
when together.
When the ages are different the spell
OF beauty Is no less potent, and is ac-
knowedged in the frankest and most
manner. Very little children
who are beautiful are adored by those
a few years older, and nearly always re-
turn this in kind The whole of the old
pictorial treatment Of the subject of the
young ST. John and the infant Christ,
though it is In the form of religious ado
ration, has for real motive this mutual
of beauty and the instant
of love between two young
children See for instance, in Leonardo
da Vinci's Our Lady of the Rocks or
in less degree in the Garvagh Ma
donna" (RaphaeD; where the Christ
gives the other child pink playing
with pink Is only the comment of the
is the tribute of the
younger to the elder child. Spectator.