“Something Childish But Very Natural” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, published 1914. The story is named after a poem Harry reads in the book-stall. The poem is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem provides in a nutshell the emotional arc of Mansfield’s story:
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.
But in my sleep to you I fly,
I’m always with you in my sleep,
The world is all one’s own,
But then one wakes and where am I?
All, all alone.
Sleep stays not though a monarch bids,
So I love to wake at break of day,
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while’ tis dark one shuts one’s lids,
And so, dreams on.
This is a story of youth and reckless abandon. At times Mansfield seems to be making fun of youthful attitudes:
“If only we weren’t so young” [Edna] said miserably. “And yet,” she sighed, “I’m sure I don’t feel very young—I feel twenty at least.”
Mansfield never lived to see middle age. But by the time she wrote this story, she almost certainly did not feel young. She had been through a lot.
CONNECTION TO MANSFIELD’S OWN LIFE
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