Abstract
There’s a lovely line, attributed to Twain, about how when he was a boy, his father was so ignorant, he couldn’t stand to have him around, but when he reached adulthood, he was astonished at how much the old man had learned. It’s a tender and wry reminder of how the conflict between adulthood and childhood—a mutual distrust, a pessimistic capacity to think the worst and an instinctive contempt—is a two-way street (David Bowie captured another side in “Changes”: “And these children that you spit on/as they try to change their worlds/are immune to your consultations/they’re quite aware of what they’re going through”).
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