James Matthew Barrie

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens James Matthew Barrie

The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with millions and hundreds of trees; and first youcome to the Figs, but you scorn to loiter there, for the Figs is the resort of superior little persons, who are forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is so named, according to legend, because theydress in full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called Figs by David and otherheroes, and you have a key to the manners and customs of this dandiacal section of the Gardenswhen I tell you that cricket is called crickets here. Occasionally a rebel Fig climbs over the fence intothe world, and such a one was Miss Mabel Grey, of whom I shall tell you when we come to MissMabel Grey's gate. She was the only really celebrated Fig. We are now in the Broad Walk, and it is as much bigger than the other walks as your father isbigger than you. David wondered if it began little, and grew and grew, until it was quite grown up, and whether the other walks are its babies, and he drew a picture, which diverted him very much, ofthe Broad Walk giving a tiny walk an airing in a perambulator. In the Broad Walk you meet all thepeople who are worth knowing, and there is usually a grown-up with them to prevent them going onthe damp grass, and to make them stand disgraced at the corner of a seat if they have been mad-dogor Mary-Annish. To be Mary-Annish is to behave like a girl, whimpering because nurse won't carryyou, or simpering with your thumb in your mouth, and it is a hateful quality; but to be mad-dog is tokick out at everything, and there is some satisfaction in tha