Tuesday, September 18, 2007

But why multiply the recollections? They bring a tremor to the strongest



of us today
But why multiply the recollections? They bring a tremor to the strongest
of us today. Who of us would choose to live through those childish fears
again? Dream fears, fears of animals, fears of furry things, fears of
ghosts and of death, dread of fatal diseases, fears of fire and of
water, of strange persons, of storms, fears of things unknown and even
unimagined, but all the more fearful! Would you all like to relive your
childhood for its pleasures if you had to take along with them its
sufferings? Would the race choose to live its evolution over again? I do
not know. But, for my own part, I should very much hesitate to turn the
hands of time backward in either case. Would that the adults at life"s
noonday, in remembering the childish fears of life"s morning, might feel
a sympathy for the children of today, who are not yet escaped from the
bonds of the fear instinct. Would that all might seek to quiet every
foolish childish fear, instead of laughing at it or enhancing it!