[BOOK][B] What Maisie Knew: In the Cage; The Pupil

H James - 1908 - books.google.com
1908books.google.com
I RECOGNISE again, for the first of these three Tales, another instance of the growth of the"
great oak" from the little acorn; since" What Maisie Knew" is at least a tree that spreads
beyond any provision its small germ might on a first handling have appeared likely to make
for it. The accidental mention had been made to me of the manner in which the situation of
some luckless child of a divorced couple was affected, under my informant's eyes, by the
remarriage of one of its parents-I forget which; so that, thanks to the limited desire for its …
I RECOGNISE again, for the first of these three Tales, another instance of the growth of the" great oak" from the little acorn; since" What Maisie Knew" is at least a tree that spreads beyond any provision its small germ might on a first handling have appeared likely to make for it. The accidental mention had been made to me of the manner in which the situation of some luckless child of a divorced couple was affected, under my informant's eyes, by the remarriage of one of its parents-I forget which; so that, thanks to the limited desire for its company expressed by the step-parent, the law of its little life, its being entertained in rotation by its father and its mother, would n't easily prevail. Whereas each of these persons had at first vindictively desired to keep it from the other, so at present the re-married relative sought now rather to be rid of it—that is to leave it as much as possible, and beyond the appointed times and seasons, on the hands of the adversary; which malpractice, resented by the latter as bad faith, would of course be repaid and avenged by an equal treachery. The wretched infant was thus to find itself practically disowned, rebounding from racquet to racquet like a tennisball or a shuttlecock. This figure could but touch the fancy to the quick and strike one as the beginning of a story—a story commanding a great choice of developments. I recollect, however, promptly thinking that for a proper symmetry the second parent should marry too which in the case named to me indeed would probably soon occur, and was in any case what the ideal of the situation required. The second step-parent would have but to be correspondingly incommoded by obligations to the offspring of a hated predecessor for the misfortune of the little victim to become altogether exemplary. The business would accordingly be V
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