And in
variety alone is safety from the danger of the convenient food becoming
the inconvenient model.
Let us suppose, then, that one who himself justly estimates the
imagination is anxious to develop its operation in his child. No doubt
the best beginning, especially if the child be young, is an acquaintance
with nature, in which let him he encouraged to observe vital phenomena,
to put things together, to speculate from what he sees to what he does
not see. But let earnest care be taken that upon no matter shall he go
on talking foolishly. Let him be as fanciful as he may, but let him not,
even in his fancy, sin against fancy's sense; for fancy has its laws as
certainly as the most ordinary business of life. When he is silly, let
him know it and be ashamed.
But where this association with nature is but occasionally possible,
recourse must be had to literature. In books, we not only have store of
all results of the imagination, but in them, as in her workshop, we may
behold her embodying before our very eyes, in music of speech, in wonder
of words, till her work, like a golden dish set with shining jewels, and
adorned by the hands of the cunning workmen, stands finished before us.
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