Day," I returned, "I would not have told you, had I known it would
give you occasion to speak so naughtily of your mother. You make me
unhappy."
He was silent. I thought he was ashamed of himself, and was sorry for
him. But my sympathy was wasted. He broke into a murmuring laugh of
merriment.
"When is a mother not a mother?" he said. "--Do you give it up?--When
she's a north wind. When she's a Roman emperor. When she's an iceberg.
When she's a brass tiger.--There! that'll do. Good-bye, mother, for the
present! I mayn't know much, as she's always telling me, but I do know
that a noun is not a thing, nor a name a person!"
I would have expostulated.
"For love's sake, dearest," he pleaded, "we will not dispute where only
one of us knows! I will tell you all some day--soon, I hope, very soon. I
am angry now!--Poor little tramping child!"
I saw I had been behaving presumptuously: I had wanted to argue while yet
in absolute ignorance of the thing in hand! Had not my uncle taught me
the folly of reasoning from the ideal where I knew nothing of the actual!
The ideal must be our guide how to treat the actual, but the actual must
be there to treat! One thing more I saw--that there could be no likeness
between his mother and my uncle!
"Will you tell me something about yourself, then?" I said.
"That would not be interesting!" he objected.
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