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Children—blameless, pure, and “trailing clouds of glory”—have been redeeming depraved adults ever since the Christ child was born, in Bethlehem. Nineteenth-century writers in particular had outsize imaginations when it came to doomed child saviors and their sacrificial deaths. Little Eva, Little Nell, the Little Mermaid, and so many other fragile girls never become “big” because they are destined to die for adult salvation.