Here was a child who had always seemed so entirely taken up with the pleasures of the passing moment, that his past and future were alike merged in the enjoyment of the present—a creature on whom sorrow and loss had produced no permanent impression passing over him, as it were, only to leave him more gay, more heedless than ever. Permanent impression! why, as far as Sir Everard knew, they had produced no impression at all!
Five days after his mother's death, he had seen him romping and playing as usual, and from that day to this, her name had never passed his lips! And now he talked of her as if her memory were very fresh and familiar; and looked upon death as calmly as if he had been contemplating it all his life.
What did it mean? When had he thought upon such things? How was it that he, who had enjoyed to the full the pleasures of his young life, should be so ready to renounce them all?
Sir Everard was fairly baffled, as he asked himself the question over and over again.
Is it, then, so difficult to understand? Sir Everard should have gone to Wordsworth, and learnt his lesson there.
"Children," he says, "are blest and powerful:—
"Their world lies more justly balanced,
Partly at their feet, and part far from them."
This is the answer to the question. A child lives, no doubt, in his surroundings throws himself heart and soul into the pleasures or the sorrows of the moment; and is immersed in the interests of the path which lies straight before him.
But this is not all. Talk to any child for a few minutes, and see, if, in the description of his hopes and joys some such phrases as these do not occur: "When I get big;" "When I am a man;" "Some day when I am older."