Children is an example of highly poetic prose.

Let us love our children serenely, devotedly, even passionately. Surely in their innocence and angelic simplicity they play on the threshold of heaven. Let us hush our noisy activities and stale anxieties, and under the trees and in the open that they love listen to the words of refreshing wisdom dropping like jewels from their naïve lips.

Let us be willing to sit at their dainty little feet, so unused to the dusty roads of this world, and learn from them divinest lessons. Let us with uplifted hearts realize our responsibility when with unconscious humility they accept us as their guides in the sweet, fresh morning of their lives.

O sister-mothers in the world, let us awaken to a deeper sense of this sublime trust, our high charge in the care of these immortal treasures, only for a little while, such a little while, given into our keeping! Let us make our hearts, our minds, our consciences worthy of these transcendent marvels of life!

Oh, joy of joys! Oh, purest wonder! How often my children lift the invisible veils that hide undreamed-of casements opening out on luminous vistas of the mystical world in which they wander, roaming fancy-free with keen and wondering delight!

Take me with you, oh, take me with you, children mine, when with bright eyes and with kindled imagination, all spirit, fire and dew, you sally forth on these highroads of discovery, to the elysiums of your day-dreams, peopled by the souls of birds, animals, flowers and pictures in happy communion!

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

  1. Point out examples of rhythmical sentences.
  2. Point out figures of speech.
  3. Point out words that have been chosen because of their charm, or their suggestive power.
  4. Show how the selection rises in emotion.
  5. How do children “play on the threshold of heaven”?
  6. What “refreshing wisdom” do children express?
  7. What “divinest lessons” may we learn from children?
  8. What “undreamed of casements” do children open?
  9. Explain the last paragraph.
  10. Point out all the respects in which this selection is like a poem.

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. The Baby11. Dreams
2. The Helpless12. Beautiful Views
3. The Old13. The Sunshine
4. Father and Mother14. Summer
5. Grandmother15. Favorite Flowers
6. Home16. Birds
7. Playmates17. My Dog
8. Memories18. The Garden
9. Holidays19. Snow
10. Ambitions20. Sunrise