Take, for example, the unconscious egoism, almost amounting, logically speaking, to “arrogance,” of most children. The world, nay, the universe, is their own little life and surroundings; their house and family are the rules, the proper thing, all others exceptions. It is not, in most instances, till childhood is growing into a phase of the past, that the sense of comparison is really developed, or that the young creatures take in that other circumstances or conditions besides their own may be what _should_ be, that they themselves do not hold a monopoly of the model existence. There is something pretty as well as absurd in this--to my mind, at least, in certain directions, something almost sacred, which it would be desecration to touch with hasty or careless fingers; which, one almost grieves to know, must pass, like all illusions, however sweet and innocent, when its day is over. To recall some recollections of my own childish beliefs--if the egotism may be pardoned, on the ground that one’s own experiences of this nature cannot but be the most trustworthy. I often smile to myself, with the smile “akin to tears,” when I look back to some of the faiths, the first principles, of my earliest years. Foremost among these was the belief in the absolute perfection of my father and mother. I thought that they could not do wrong, that they knew _everything_. I remember feeling extremely surprised and perplexed on some occasions when, having involuntarily--for I, like most children, but seldom expressed or alluded to my deepest convictions--allowed this creed of mine to escape me, the subjects of it--though not without a smile--endeavoured tenderly to correct my estimate of them. “There are many, many things I do not know about, my little girl,” my father would say, adding once, I remember--for this remark impressed me greatly--“I only know enough to begin to see that I am exceedingly ignorant.” And my mother was even more emphatic in her deprecation of our nursery fiat that “mamma was quite, quite good.” Not that these protestations shook our faith. In my own case I know that the unconscious arrogance with regard to family conditions extended to ludicrous details. I thought that the Christian names of my parents were the only correct ones for papas and mammas; I believed that the order in which we children stood--there were six of us, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl--was the appointed order of nature, that all deviation from these and other particulars of the kind was abnormal and incorrect, and I viewed with condescending pity the playmates whose brothers and sisters were wrongly arranged, or whose parents suffered under “not right” names.