Editing Saki (section)

==="The Toys of Peace"===
Preferring not to give her young sons toy soldiers or guns, and having taken away their toy depicting the [[Siege of Adrianople (1912-13)|Siege of Adrianople]], Eleanor instructs her brother Harvey to give them innovative "peace toys" as an Easter present. When the packages are opened young Bertie shouts "It's a fort!" and is disappointed when his uncle replies "It's a municipal dustbin." The boys are initially baffled as to how to obtain any enjoyment from models of a school of art and a public library, or from little figures of [[John Stuart Mill]], [[Felicia Hemans]] and Sir [[John Herschel]]. Youthful inventiveness finds a way, however, as the boys combine their history lessons on Louis XIV with a lurid and violent play-story about the invasion of Britain and the storming of the [[Young Women's Christian Association]]. The end of the story has Harvey reporting failure to Eleanor, explaining "We have begun too late," not realising he was doomed to failure whenever he had begun.