Anna Letitia Barbauld Children Quotations

Eternity.—Thy name Or glad, or fearful, we pronounce, as thoughts Wandering in darkness shape thee. Thou strange being, Which art and must be, yet which contradict'st All sense, all reasoning,—thou, who never wast Less than thyself, and who still art thyself Entire, though the deep draught which Time has taken Equals thy present store—No line can reach To thy unfathomed depths. The reasoning sage Who can dissect a sunbeam, count the stars, And measure distant worlds, is here a child, And, humbled, drops his calculating pen.

Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?

Children have almost an intuitive discernment between the maxims you bring forward for their use, and those by which you direct your own conduct.