As Though They Were The Same Age

A portion of a letter from William Falkner to his mother, while visiting a few countries in Europe in 1925. While in Paris, he observed the sweetness of family life one afternoon among French families visiting Luxembourg Gardens. What he saw and conveyed to his mother so beautifully, pictures what family life ought to be. The letter was written August 18, 1925.

I have a nice room just around the corner from the Luxembourg gardens, where I can sit and write and watch the children. Everything in the gardens is for children—its beautiful the way the French love their babies. They treat children as though they were the same age as the grown-ups—they walk along the street together, a man or a woman and a child, talking and laughing together as though they were the same age.

Selected Letter of William Faulkner, edited by Joseph Blotner, Random House, 1977, p. 13.