Peter Pan

by J.M. Barrie

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.

“You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”

Besides, I can’t fly.” “I’ll teach you.” “Oh, how lovely to fly.” “I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back, and then away we go.”

“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they lift you up in the air.”

“Second to the right, and straight on till morning.”

“I say, Wendy,” he whispered to her, “always if you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying ‘I’m Wendy,’ and then I’ll remember.”

“Would you like an adventure now,” he said casually to John, “or would you like to have your tea first?”

Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.

The upper world had called him, but would give no help.

“I’m youth, I’m joy,” Peter answered at a venture, “I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”

In time they could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they no longer believed.

“The dear old days when I could fly!” “Why can’t you fly now, mother?” “Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way.” “Why do they forget the way?” “Because they are longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.”

“The last thing he ever said to me was, ‘Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.’”

and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.