Peter Pan

“ SIR J. M. BARRIE'S delightful creation, "Peter Pan," has by this time taken a secure place in the hearts of children of all ages, and there are few nurseries in the land in which Peter, Wendy, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook and his Pirates, the Mermaids and Redskins, and the exciting world in which they lived, are not as familiar as the most time-honoured lore of fairyland. ”

“ Oh! what joy to feel once more those dear faces, cool and fresh from the flight through the night air, pressed against hers, hot with tears; to hear once more the sound of those sweet voices as they all talked at once. At last, when she was a little calm, Wendy began telling her about Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, who with Peter Pan himself were all waiting outside. ”

“ If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did." Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. ”

“ If so, Peter Pan sees them when he is sailing across the lake in the Thrush's Nest. A small part only of the Serpentine is in the Gardens, for soon it passes beneath a bridge to far away where the island is on which all the birds are born that become baby boys and girls. No one who is human, except Peter Pan (and he is only half human) , can land on the island, but you may write what you want (boy or girl, dark or fair) on a piece of paper, and then twist it into the shape of a boat and slip it into the water, and it reaches Peter Pan's island after dark. ”

“ They are conscienceless. In this respect Peter Pan is an immortal fairy as well as an immortal child. While like a child he resents injustice in horrified silence, like a fairy he acts with no sense of responsibility. ”

“ They bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster they foot it till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without my telling you, Peter Pan is the fairies’ orchestra. He sits in the middle of the ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays without him. “P. P.” is written on the corner of the invitation-cards sent out by all really good families. They are grateful little people, too, and at the princess’s coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their second birthday and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish of his heart. ”

“ Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush’s nest large enough to hold Peter.
But still, to Peter’s agony, the thrushes were sulky. “We are very busy people,” they grumbled, “and this would be a big job.”
“Quite so,” said Solomon, “and, of course, Peter would not allow you to work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been paid before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be paid sixpence a day.” ”

“ They were arrived at the little brown church. “Well, that’s the whole scenario, Peter Pan. You’ll have to do your own continuity.”
“Meaning which?”
“Meaning—” she stood still and put one thin hand with its pointed and glistening nails on his arm, and her bright eyes under their plucked brows were steady and serious. “Say, listen, Peter Pan, she’s there a billion, Glen Darrow. What more do you want? Beauty—gobs of it; brains to burn; good blood; pep ’n ginger, I’ll say! And a straight shooter if ever there was one in a crooked world!” ”

“ The underground home of the Lost Boys in the Never Never Land.
"Peter Pan is the sun. He is the moon. He is the stars. Us no let pirates hurt li'l boys."
"What Peter Pan give Tiger Lily for guarding him?"
"Wendy, I'm too big for a cradle."
"You are smallest—and a cradle is such a homey thing to have about the house." ”

“ At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. ”

“ He realizes, what Peter Pan could not be made to realize, that a plain human house of one’s own, standing in one’s own backyard, is really quite as romantic as a rather cloudy house at the top of a tree or a highly conspiratorial house underneath the roots of it. But this is because he has explored his own house, which Peter Pan and such discontented children seldom do. ”

“ No one saw Peter cut the ropes which bound Wendy, and take her place at the mast, and cover his face [72] with the brown cloak she had left, while Wendy joined the Boys.
"It's the girl!" cried Hook, "there's never luck on a pirate ship with a woman aboard; let's throw her over." All the men knew that their Captain was right, and one of the Pirates started up and shook his fist at the brown-robed figure at the mast. "There's nothing can save you now, Missy," he cried. "There is one," came a ringing voice, and the brown cloak was flung aside and there stood Peter Pan. ”

“ Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light, she saw hundreds of them all together; and this must have been the fairies building the house, for they build it every night, and always in a different part of the Gardens. She thought one of the lights was bigger than the others, though she was not quite sure, for they jumped about so, and it might have been another one that was bigger. But if it was the same one, it was Peter Pan's light. Heaps of children have seen the light, so that is nothing. ”

“ It was a matter of common observation, even in that supposed center of case-hardened worldliness, New York, that the audiences were largely of grown-ups, and that stock-brokers, “tired business men,” and others who would flee miles from the ordinary “children’s play,” came not once, but thrice, a dozen times, in some cases, to see the triumph of Peter over Captain Hook. The elfin quality, the gracious charm and warm-hearted humor of Miss Adams’ Peter Pan may not have been sufficient to make it, as a feat of acting, her most memorable achievement ”

“ There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan. ”

“ The most remarkable thing about him was that he never grew up. There came flitting in through the window with him his fairy, whose name was Tinker Bell. Peter Pan woke all the children up, and after he had sprinkled fairy dust on their shoulders, he took them away to the Neverland, where he lived with a family of lost boys. Tinker Bell was jealous of the little girl Wendy, and she hurried ahead of Peter Pan and persuaded the boys that Wendy was a bird who might do them harm, and so one of the boys shot her with his bow and arrow. ”

“ It was a gay holiday world, as she looked down on it from her seat beside Phil. She wished that the drive could be prolonged indefinitely, but there was only time for the briefest spin before the hour for the matinee. More than all, the programme brought back that bewitching moment when, keyed to the highest pitch of expectation by the entrancing music of the orchestra, the curtain went up, and the world of Peter Pan drew her into its magic spell.
It was a full day, so full that there was no opportunity until nearly bedtime to explain to the girls the cause of her morning disappearance. ”

“ This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days' old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens. ”

“ You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens. They are in London, where the King lives, and I used to take David there nearly every day unless he was looking decidedly flushed. No child has ever been in the whole of the Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back is that, if you are as small as David, you sleep from twelve to one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep from twelve to one, you could most likely see the whole of them. ”

“ She simply smiled to herself. (See articles on Spiders; Flies and Insects in general in Book of the Animal Kingdom.)
THE STORY OF PETER PAN Every child in the world grows up to be a woman or a man. The only one who doesn’t grow up, and won’t, is Peter Pan. He always stays a little boy, which is very jolly indeed, and he’s friends with all little boys and girls,—as you’ll understand if you read.
The Darlings,—Wendy, John, and Michael,—lived with their father and mother. ”

“ Also there's Peter Pan. We could count on him to stand by us to the end of time."
"Peter Pan?" Keith repeated, puzzled. Joan, who had joined them, smiled.
"He's quite grown up in one way," she said. "For an islander he is a perfect giant. Maybe he is thirty years old. He certainly is the most cheerful black I ever knew. They are all very simple in a way, though it is simplicity tempered with cunning as a rule. But Peter Pan is just a huge child. He broke both his legs two years ago and he thought the devil-devil was going to get him till Chester patched him up. ”

“ HOOK'S iron claw makes a circle of black water round him from which opponents flee like fishes. There is only one prepared to enter that dreadful circle. His name is PAN. Strangely, it is not in the water that they meet. HOOK has risen to the rock to breathe, and at the same moment PETER scales it on the opposite side. The rock is now wet and as slippery as a ball, and they have to crawl rather than climb. Suddenly they are face to face. PETER gnashes his pretty teeth with joy, and is gathering himself for the spring when he sees he is higher up the rock than his foe. ”

“ There was certainly nothing in the world around him to help him to the discovery. Here Christ was indeed human; but more human than a human being was then likely to be. Peter Pan does not belong to the world of Pan but the world of Peter. ”

“ In blessed singleness of heart,
What heed has she for nations' wrath?
She sings a little peaceful hymn
As she prepares the baby's bath.
As in a dream, she hears the talk
Of mine, torpedo, bomb and gun—
She shudders, but her thoughts are all
Encradled with her little son.
PETER PAN "The boy for whom Barrie wrote Peter Pan—the
original of Peter Pan—has died in battle." —New York Times.
And Peter Pan is dead? not so!
When mothers turn the lights down low
And tuck their little sons in bed,
They know that Peter is not dead.... ”

“ Peter Pan and his wife, however, were called from their interesting still-hunt by the yells of the baby cub and now hastened to his rescue, and having dragged him out, a miserable little bunch of draggled fur, Bedelia proceeded to rub him dry, using as a towel Bob’s white silk blouse, that she found folded carefully on a chair with the rest of his belongings, while Peter Pan, having soundly smacked the twins, returned to his congenial task of turning out Bob’s closet. ”

“ It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their band, but chiefly Pan.
Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man’s hatred of him. True he had flung Hook’s arm to the crocodile, but even this and the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the crocodile’s pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. ”

“ They blink three times one after the other and go out, precisely as children (whom familiarity has made them resemble) fall asleep. There is another light in the room now, no larger than MRS. DARLING'S fist, and in the time we have taken to say this it has been into the drawers and wardrobe and searched pockets, as it darts about looking for a certain shadow. Then the window is blown open, probably by the smallest and therefore most mischievous star, and PETER PAN flies into the room. ”

“ Nor did Barrie ever weary of telling him how the play began as a nursery tale for children; how their insistent demand to "tell us more" made it the "longest story in the world"; how, when one pirate had been killed, little Peter (the original of the character, now a soldier in the great war) excitedly said: "One man isn't enough; let's kill a lot of them."
No one will be surprised to know that in connection with "Peter Pan" is one of the most sweetly gracious acts in Frohman's life. The original of Peter was sick in bed at his home when the play was produced in London. ”

“ But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes fell into sad thoughts, and then the music became sad also, and the reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens, though he could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but oh! how he longed to play as other children play, and of course there is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears started in Peter's eyes. ”