Barrie, James -- Peter Pan, Act 5 (1904, pub. 1928)

Dave — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 17:43:39 +0000

MRS. DARLING: (from the window) Peter, where are you? Let me adopt you too. (She is the loveliest age for a woman, but too old to see PETER clearly.)

PETER: Would you send me to school?

MRS. DARLING: (obligingly) Yes.

PETER: And then to an office?

MRS. DARLING: I suppose so.

PETER: Soon I should be a man?

MRS. DARLING: Very soon.

PETER: (passionately) I don’t want to go to school and learn solemn things. No one is going to catch me, lady, and make me a man. I want always to be a little boy and to have fun.

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish novelist and dramatist [James Matthew Barrie]
Peter Pan, Act 5 (1904, pub. 1928)
(Source)

In Barrie's novelization, Peter and Wendy, ch. 17 "When Wendy Grew Up" (1911), this is rendered:

Mrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keeping a sharp eye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys, and would like to adopt him also.
“Would you send me to school?” he inquired craftily.
“Yes.”
“And then to an office?”
“I suppose so.”
“Soon I should be a man?”
“Very soon.”
“I don’t want to go to school and learn solemn things,” he told her passionately. “I don’t want to be a man. O Wendy’s mother, if I was to wake up and feel there was a beard!”
“Peter,” said Wendy the comforter, “I should love you in a beard;” and Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her.
“Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.”

WIST Quotations

Barrie, James -- Peter Pan, Act 5 (1904, pub. 1928)