Something childish but very natural
Posted by: adonis49 on: December 19, 2025
An extract (with slight editing) from the collection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield, an author from New Zealand (!888-1923)
I woke up this morning and decided to change the routine. Before even washing my face, I opted to read for half an hour from the book of collected stories.
“The most thrilling day of the year. The first real day Spring. It unclosed its warm delicious beauty over to London eyes. It put a spangle in every color and a new tone in every voice. City folks walked as though they carried real live bodies under their clothes with real live hearts pumping the still blood through.
Young Henry was a great fellow for books. He did not read many nor did he possess above half a dozen. He sat in the third class “smoker” compartment. The train carriage smelt of wet india-rubber and soot. He chose a corner seat and put his tight straw hat on a rack along with his large cardboard portfolio and his Aunt’s Christmas present glove.
With ten minutes for the train to star, he decided to have a look at the book stall outside. The quantity with which he was on nodding terms with books was amazing. Henry stumbled on an anthology of English poetry. A title struck his eyes -“Something Childish but very natural” Henry read:
Had I but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I’d fly, my dear.
But thoughts like these are idle things
And I stay here.
Sleep stays not though a monarch bird
So, I love to wake at break of day
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while ’tis dark one shuts one’s lid,
And so, dream on.
Henry imagined the poet was half-awake some time, for it’s got a smile of a dream on it.
The train was moving slowly and he jumped and ended sitting in a different compartment with a very young girl seated opposite.
She had a long wave of marigold-colored hair. And she had a pretty face. How simply beautiful she is sang Henry’s heart.
Henry started to explain to the girl how he ended sitting opposite her. The smile of the girl danced in her eyes, crept over her cheeks to her lips and stayed there.
He uttered ” isn’t life beautiful?”
The girl: “I don’t think so. I have been a fatalist for a long time now“.
In the next stop after crossing the tunnel, the girl was to get out, Henry said: “I must see you again”. She said breathlessly: ” I come down from London every evening”
Good enough for today.
It is beneficial to occasionally alter you daily routine.
Adonis Diaries 
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