Happy Families

From a book, Seven Ages of Childhood by Ella Lyman Cabot:

"This second period, from about three years to seven, is the Dramatic Age. ..a child of three or four turns to things of the spirit. What magnificent wisdom he shows! If our generation would but take the path of this imaginative age, civilization would lose its dulness. Eyes have we, but we see not; ears have we, but we hear not the sounds of the spirit. The more worldly-wise we become the less we use our eyes, our ears, our feet.

"The wisdom of children is that, as soon as they acquire the tools of language and skill in handling their bodies and the surrounding world, they turn to create art and speak poetic prose...

She then goes on to tell of a little blind boy of five who sang through a long, smoky tunnel while on a train while the rest of the passengers were irritable and annoyed.. He changed the mood of the rest of the passengers. "He was in a magic dungeon, and, like Saint Peter and Saint Paul in prison, found his way out through angelic messengers and song. Children escape from all prisons, are free from all poverty, because wherever they are confined, they create."

Art credit: Happy Families by Andre Henri-Dargelas