File:The century illustrated monthly magazine (1882) (14780064194).jpg

Identifier: centuryillustratv43n2newy (find matches)
Title: The century illustrated monthly magazine
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: American literature
Publisher: New York : Century Co.
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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he attitude more impor-tant than the achievement ? The aboundingintellectual curiosity of children, and their con-tinual return to the biggest and deepest ques-tions,— the origin of things, the sources andends of being,— these are what make themsuperior. What if the questions can never beabsolutely answered ? Is it not infinitely morerespectable to have them earnestly in mind than,accepting some mumbo-jumbo reply, to dis-miss them altogether and to devote existencewholly to the frivolities we call business, orpleasure, or learning ? What else was Carlylesfundamental raison d etre but his power to re-call us to a degree of the serious reasonablewonder with which we start in life ? Upon my word, I sometimes think that ifthe world were started now on a new plan,and peopled altogether with the middle-aged,religions, after going on a short time throughthe impetus of custom, would die out all overthe world from this simple lack of interest inthe questions they primarily undertake to an-
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ENGRAVED BY W. B. CLGSSON. OWNED BY ARTHUR ASTOR CAREY MOTHER AND CHILD. BY ABBOTT H. THAYER. Vol. XLIIL—31. 242 CHILDHOOD. swer. As it is, the children force us to keepsome sort of theory of existence furbished up.Perhaps it is the seriousness of its intereststhat invests childhood with the mysterious,evanescent, exquisite beauty Wordsworth hadin mind when he wrote: The Soul that rises with us, our lifes Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh fromafar: Not in entireforgetfulness, and notin utter naked-ness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. The haunting charm of these lines is not theresult of their doctrine, but results from a state-ment of it that subtly suggests this namelessother-world loveliness. Neither does my rashlyventured explanation explain — or, at most, itgoes a very little way. We simply do not knowwhat gives childhood such divine aspects. Thefact is one of those grateful, poetical phenom-ena, of which the world happily con

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