27 MARCH 1926, Page 15

TRUE AND FALSE MODESTY

.[To the .Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sri; On reading your article in your issue of 20th inst., the whole context and the concluding words struck me so that I exclaimed, " What a splendid paper the Spectator is! When I was a -child- when-we asked where babies came from the nurse would .tell us that they were found under a goose- berry bush. This left incredulity and curiosity only. to be

enlightened later perhaps in impure guise. . . .

Some years ago (perhaps in the Spectator) I read of a mother telling her little girl that she had carried her in her body before she was born, and the child exclaimed, " Oh, mummy How lovely ! " How much better is this latter way.—I am, Sir, &c.,

GEO. CHRYSTIE,

Short Heath. Lodge, Farnham, Surrey. Colonel.