The Story of Doctor Dolittle | Page 3

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THE Story of DOCTOR DOLITTLE BEING THE HISTORY OF HIS
PECULIAR LIFE AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES
IN FOREIGN PARTS NEVER BEFORE PRINTED.
TO ALL CHILDREN CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN
HEART I DEDICATE THIS STORY

There are some of us now reaching middle age who discover
themselves to be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that
there are no books written now for children comparable with those of
thirty years ago. I say written FOR children because the new
psychological business of writing ABOUT them as though they were
small pills or hatched in some especially scientific method is extremely
popular today. Writing for children rather than about them is very
difficult as everybody who has tried it knows. It can only be done, I am

convinced, by somebody having a great deal of the child in his own
outlook and sensibilities. Such was the author of "The Little Duke" and
"The Dove in the Eagle's Nest," such the author of "A Flatiron for a
Farthing," and "The Story of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author
of "Alice in Wonderland." Grownups imagine that they can do the trick
by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical
audience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of the
author must be a child's imagination and yet maturely consistent, so
that the White Queen in "Alice," for instance, is seen just as a child
would see her, but she continues always herself through all her
distressing adventures. The supreme touch of the white rabbit pulling
on his white gloves as he hastens is again absolutely the child's vision,
but the white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice's adventures
belongs to mature grown insight.
Geniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of times
past, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh
Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and
Lewis Carroll had not appeared. I remember the delight with which
some six months ago I picked up the first "Dolittle" book in the
Hampshire bookshop at Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr.
Lofting's pictures was quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted
upon when I first opened the book was the one of the monkeys making
a chain with their arms across the gulf. Then I looked further and
discovered Bumpo reading fairy stories to himself. And then looked
again and there was a picture of John Dolittle's house.
But pictures are not enough although most authors draw so badly that if
one of them happens to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting shows
there must be, one feels, something in his writing as well. There is. You
cannot read the first paragraph of the book, which begins in the right
way "Once upon a time" without knowing that Mr. Lofting believes in
his story quite as much as he expects you to. That is the first essential
for a story teller. Then you discover as you read on that he has the right
eye for the right detail. What child-inquiring mind could resist this
intriguing sentence to be found on the second page of the book:

"Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had
rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen
closet and a hedgehog in the cellar."
And then when you read a little further you will discover that the
Doctor is not merely a peg on whom to hang exciting and various
adventures but that he is himself a man of original and lively character.
He is a very kindly, generous man, and anyone who has ever written
stories will know that it is much more difficult to make kindly,
generous characters interesting than unkindly and mean ones. But
Dolittle is interesting. It is not only