The life of finite creatures is so poor and narrow that the mere sight of what is arouses no emotion.  It is fancy which decks reality, and if imagination does not lend its charm to that which touches our senses, our barren pleasure is confined to the senses alone, while the heart remains cold.  The earth adorned with the treasures of autumn displays a wealth of colour which the eye admires; but this admiration fails to move us, it springs rather from thought than from feeling.  In spring the country is almost bare and leafless, the trees give no shade, the grass has hardly begun to grow, yet the heart is touched by the sight.  In this new birth of nature, we feel the revival of our own life; the memories of past pleasures surround us; tears of delight, those companions of pleasure ever ready to accompany a pleasing sentiment, tremble on our eyelids.  Animated, lively, and delightful though the vintage may be, we behold it without a tear.

And why is this?  Because imagination adds to the sight of spring the image of the seasons which are yet to come; the eye sees the tender shoot, the mind’s eye beholds its flowers, fruit, and foliage, and even the mysteries they may conceal.  It blends successive stages into one moment’s experience; we see things, not so much as they will be, but as we would have them be, for imagination has only to take her choice.  In autumn, on the other hand, we only behold the present; if we wish to look forward to spring, winter bars the way, and our shivering imagination dies away among its frost and snow.

This is the source of the charm we find in beholding the beauties of childhood, rather than the perfection of manhood.  When do we really delight in beholding a man?  When the memory of his deeds leads us to look back over his life and his youth is renewed in our eyes.  If we are reduced to viewing him as he is, or to picturing him as he will be in old age, the thought of declining years destroys all our pleasure.  There is no pleasure in seeing a man hastening to his grave; the image of death makes all hideous.

But when I think of a child of ten or twelve, strong, healthy, well-grown for his age, only pleasant thoughts are called up, whether of the present or the future.  I see him keen, eager, and full of life, free from gnawing cares and painful forebodings, absorbed in this present state, and delighting in a fullness of life which seems to extend beyond himself.  I look forward to a time when he will use his daily increasing sense, intelligence and vigour, those growing powers of which he continually gives fresh proof.  I watch the child with delight, I picture to myself the man with even greater pleasure.  His eager life seems to stir my own pulses, I seem to live his life and in his vigour I renew my own.

The hour strikes, the scene is changed.  All of a sudden his eye grows dim, his mirth has fled.  Farewell mirth, farewell untrammelled sports in which he delighted.  A stern, angry man takes him by the hand, saying gravely, “Come with me, sir,” and he is led away.  As they are entering the room, I catch a glimpse of books.  Books, what dull food for a child of his age!  The poor child allows himself to be dragged away; he casts a sorrowful look on all about him, and departs in silence, his eyes swollen with the tears he dare not shed, and his heart bursting with the sighs he dare not utter.