epsia, and go to
Europe. But the beauty and sweetness of children are entirely wasted on
themselves, and their frankness is a source of infinite annoyance to
each other. A man enjoys _himself_. If he is handsome, or wise, or
witty, he generally knows it, and takes great satisfaction in it; but
a child does not. He loses half his happiness because he does not know
that he is happy. If he ever has any consciousness, it is an isolated,
momentary thing, with no relation to anything antecedent or subsequent.
It lays hold on nothing. Not only have they no perception of themselves,
but they have no perception of anything. They never recognize an
exigency. They do not salute greatness. Has not the Autocrat told us of
some lady who remembered a certain momentous event in our Revolutionary
War, and remembered it only by and because of the regret she experienced
at leaving her doll behind, when her family was forced to fly from home?
What humiliation is this! What an utter failure to appreciate the issues
of life! For her there was no revolution, no upheaval of world-old
theories, no struggle for freedom, no great combat of the heroisms.
All the passion and pain, the mortal throes of error, the glory of
sacrifice, the victory of an idea, the triumph of right, the dawn of a
new era,--all, all were hidden from her behind a lump of wax. And what
was true of her is true of all her class. Having eyes, they see not;
with their ears they do not hear. The din of arms, the waving of
banners, the gleam of swords, fearful sights and great signs in the
heavens, or the still, small voice that thrills when wind and fire and
earthquake have swept by, may proclaim the coming of the Lord, and they
stumble along, munching bread-and-butter. Out in the solitudes Nature
speaks with her many-toned voices, and they are deaf. They have a blind
sensational enjoyment, such as a squirrel or a chicken may have, but
they can in no wise interpret the Mighty Mother, nor even hear her
words. The ocean moans his secret to unheeding ears. The agony of the
underworld finds no speech in the mountain-peaks, bare and grand. The
old oaks stretch out their arms in vain. Grove whispers to grove, and
the robin stops to listen, but the child plays on. He bruises the happy
buttercups, he crushes the quivering anemone, and his cruel fingers are
stained with the harebell's purple blood. Rippling waterfall and rolling
river, the majesty of sombre woods, the wild waste of wildern