sight, have many pauses as well as flights. This is the action of
intelligence, whereas the eyes of intellect are detained or darkened.

Rational perception, with all its phases of humour, are best expressed by
a child, who has few second thoughts to divide the image of his momentary
feeling. His simplicity adds much to the manifestation of his
intelligence. The child is the last and lowest of rational creatures,
for in him the "rational soul" closes its long downward flight with the
bright final revelation.

He has also the chief beauty of the irrational soul of the mind, that is,
of the lower animal--which is singleness. The simplicity, the integrity,
the one thing at a time, of a good animal's eyes is a great beauty, and
is apt to cause us to exaggerate our sense of their expressiveness. An
animal's eyes, at their best, are very slightly expressive; languor or
alertness, the quick expectation, even the aloofness of doubt they are
able to show, but the showing is mechanical; the human sentiment of the
spectator adds the rest.

All this simplicity the child has, at moments, with the divisions and
delicacies of the rational soul, also. His looks express the first, the
last, and the clearest humanity. He is the first by his youth and the
last by his lowliness. He is the beginning and the result of the
creation of man.

UNDER THE EARLY STARS

Play is not for every hour of the day, or for any hour taken at random.
There is a tide in the affairs of children. Civilization is cruel in
sending them to bed at the most stimulating time of dusk. Summer dusk,
especially, is the frolic moment for children, baffle them how you may.
They may have been in a pottering mood all day, intent upon all kinds of
close industries, breathing hard over choppings and poundings. But when
late twilight comes, there comes also the punctual wildness. The
children will run and pursue, and laugh for the mere movement--it does so
jog their spirits.

What remembrances does this imply of the hunt, what of the predatory
dark? The kitten grows alert at the same hour, and hunts for moths and
crickets in the grass. It comes like an imp, leaping on all fours. The
children lie in ambush and fall upon one another in the mimicry of
hunting.

The sudden outbreak of action is complained of as a defiance and a
rebellion. Their entertainers are tired, and the children are to go
home. But, with more or less of life and fire, they stri