Hugh Walpole

“ What we want," he cried, "is for John's attention to be directed towards somebody else. We shall have no peace until he loses interest in us. That is where I want your help."
"Loses interest in you?" asked Borden. "That's a strange phrase to use about a small boy of twelve."
"I know it is," repeated Mr. Bumpus, almost in agony, "but when you see the boy, you will understand what I mean. He is extraordinarily old for his age, and he knows much more about all of us than any boy has a right to know. He is not a wholesome boy."
"Do you mean that he is a nasty-minded boy?" asked Borden. ”

“ We can support with comparative ease those friends of ours who realise only the weaknesses that we have not got, but so soon as anyone puts their finger upon even the tiniest of our real faults, we begin to dislike them and think that we had better have somebody kinder in their place.
John knew perfectly well that Emmeline was cultivating, so fast as she could, all the domestic virtues because she was lazy, and found that those same virtues brought in the quickest and most tangible rewards. ”

“ I tried to get from him the explanation of last night's adventure.
"Well, you see," he said, "I've been wondering for a long time whether I couldn't do something with Emmeline, and suddenly it occurred to me that if I took her out in all the rain and lost her, it would be funny to see what she'd be like afterwards."
"That was very wrong, John," I said.
"Why? "he asked.
"It's always very wrong," I went on, "to make people unhappy just for your own pleasure."
"Why?" he asked.
"Well, of course it is," I continued. "What we're here for is to make people happy, not unhappy." ”

“ The Bumpuses, on the other hand, are younger than they've any right to be, simply because they have allowed their imagination to die a natural death, and have developed such a strain of English prudery that they are quite incapable of seeing what's in front of their noses."
For a week or two this explanation sufficed me. Borden and I, in the arrogance of our young hearts, agreed that it would be very easy to detach the youthful John's mind from the Bumpus family and to fix it upon something or someone else, even, if need be, upon ourselves. ”

“ Now, all we want is for him to fix his attention upon somebody else. It really is most uncomfortable, feeling that a boy of his age is watching you all the time, and regards you rather like animals in the Zoo. Mrs. Bumpus doesn't like it, and although she wouldn't say an unkind word about the boy, and, indeed, never says an unkind word about anybody, still, she isn't comfortable when he's in the house, nor, indeed, when he's out of it, and it's for her sake, more than my own, that I have asked your assistance."
That was a strange night when John came to stay. ”

“ And Emmeline, who cheated herself, as we all do, into believing that she invariably acted from the purest and most beautiful motives, would get one of those nasty little glimpses into reality which kind friends in a temper sometimes give us, which are, indeed, almost the only link with reality that we have. ”

“ Bumpus, "that it is so difficult to tell. The boy's not a wicked boy—at least, not in the accepted term of wickedness—he doesn't steal nor tell lies." Then again, with the utmost solemnity: "He is not a real boy, gentlemen, at all. Not like any other boy in the whole world. ”

“ John knew that she was not comfortable, and if that particular relation did not speedily produce something in the way of a gift or an invitation, Emmeline grouped herself elsewhere.
Gertrude, on the other hand, was all for æstheticism. What she wanted to be was strange and peculiar, so that people coming to tea said to Mrs. Bumpus: "That's an original child you've got there; she should do something when she grows up." ”

“ Have you got any children? Do you go to the theatre every night? I saw 'Charlie's Aunt' once. I like Nellie Wallace better. Don't you think it's a shame when you don't like cricket that you have to play? Have you got a boiler in your bath? We have at Uncle Henry's. Do you wear a night-shirt or pyjamas? Is this the first time you've ever had a boy in your house? Do you know all Aunt Mary's hair isn't real, and she can take some of it out when she likes? ”

“ I asked him.
"Why should I?" he asked.
"Other people can make you feel all sorts of things."
"Why?" he asked.
"Well, because they're so close to you, and we're all mixed up together."
"I'm not mixed up with anybody," he answered. "I just wanted to see what Emmeline would do, and what Uncle Henry would do, and what the policeman would do, and what you'd do. I haven't finished," he ended, with a chuckle, "seeing what Uncle Henry will do. I'm sure he'll do something silly. Emmeline's not so bad," he added reflectively. "If you tell her stories, she believes them." ”

“ The trouble with her, Chippet said, was that she had too much imagination. We would have rid ourselves of her cantankerous company in no time at all had it not been that we dared not challenge her ever. Old though she was, she could be still a terrible enemy, and having no affection for the truth, and all the romantic anecdotage of very old age, she could ruin somebody's reputation in less time than it takes to poach an egg. ”

“ He was one of those little men who wear their clothes like armour, who are so cleanly shaven, save for a little neat moustache, that their cheeks gleam like billiard balls, who are right and tight in their person, upon whose bodies there is no speck of dust, and upon whose souls there is no sign of any abnormal curiosities. ”

“ Children, like their elders, are cruel, malicious, mean, treacherous, tyrannous, greedy, remorseless, selfish, but, unlike their elders, they make no sort of pretence of pretending that these unpleasant emotions are anything but what they are. Ask a cherub of twelve and a half what during last term he did to another cherub aged nine and a half, and if he discovers that you are to be trusted, he will show you, that the head-hunters of Tsavo are not in it with him for the frank indulgence of cheerful cruelty. ”

“ There are some men and a few women who are often praised for "never growing up"; these remain among the nastiest and most dangerous of their kind. On the other hand, there are some boys who grow up at once and are a great deal older than their elders. It was at first this that I supposed had happened to John Borstal Clay. "He's simply," I told myself, "been living with grown-up people and is old before his time. ”

“ I can make them ratty in no time."
"Well, it isn't right," I said, "to like making people uncomfortable who've been good to you."
"They've only been good to me," he said, "because they'd be uncomfortable if they weren't." ”

“ By this parents are influenced, and become morbidly anxious about the ethical state of their little ones; friends are perpetually bored by discoveries made by anxious mothers of the new tendencies in their darlings' little souls; the only beings entirely uninfluenced by this modern movement are the children themselves. Children form the only portion of the earth's population entirely untouched by the development of so-called civilisation. ”

“ Don't you think it's a pity," he continued, "that when anybody is going to be a princess in the evening, she should be an advertisement in the daytime?"
"I really haven't thought about it," I answered. "It's very difficult for anybody to be a princess all the time."
"Why?" asked John. ”

“ Bumpus. "We're all so tired. I'm sure that we shall discuss it better in the morning."
Next morning, at ten o'clock, I was summoned to a family conference. When I arrived I found that I was, in the eyes of both Mr. and Mrs. Bumpus, the villain of the piece. It was still very uncertain as to what exactly Emmeline and John had done the night before. It appeared that John had tempted her with some story of meeting an old man on Primrose Hill who had bags of gold that he distributed for the asking. ”

“ You're one of this new generation who don't believe in God, and think the only thing to do is just what you want to do; but you're corrupting the young, and I tell you that the next generation will have to pay for the sins of this one. ”

“ I watched creep into his eyes just the expression, the malicious, inquisitive, humorous, sporting expression that I had once seen as he watched Emmeline, Gertrude, and little Percival, and I knew that he had found a new occupation. ...
John Borstal Clay has taken up his permanent residence in the enormous, gloomy house in Portland Place owned by the Dowager Countess of Pruxe. The old lady has already had four different companions during the three months of his stay there. She herself declares that she has a new joy in life. Many weeks ago Mr. Bumpus paid the firm of Boniface and Co. ”

“ So Gertrude was learning the piano in a quite excruciating fashion, was ready to recite "We Are Seven" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus" on the slightest invitation, and very often on no invitation at all, and loved to sit on a small stool in the very middle of the drawing-room floor, staring in front of her, gazing into nothing. Little Percival was the only one of the family who pursued his gentle way without artificiality, but in his case you could not but wish for a little affectation, his natural habits, manners, and customs being of the noisiest, most provocative kind. Mrs. ”