You may feel
that you would like him to remain at the age of ten. Indeed you are a
strange parent if you do not look back a little wistfully to the childhood
of your children, and wish you could see them as you once saw them. But you
would not really have Johnny stick at ten. After five years of the
experience you would wish little Johnny dead. For life and its beauty are a
living thing, and not a pretty fancy sculptured on a Grecian urn.
And so with the pageant of Nature. If the pageant stopped, the wonder
itself would stop. I should have no sudden shock of delight at hearing the
first call of the cuckoo in spring or seeing my hawthorn hedge burst into
snowy blossoms. I should no longer remark the jolly clatter of the rooks in
the February trees which forms the prologue of spring, nor look out for the
coming of the first primrose or the arrival of the first swallow. I should
cease, it is true, to have the pangs of "Farewell," but I should cease also
to have the ecstasy of "Hail." I should have my Grecian urn, but I should
have lost the magic of the living world.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311