This leads naturally to the poetic imaginings of many children who have outgrown their babyhood, but have not yet had their fancies blurred and obscured by the tasks and troubles of the world. They possess a gift which all may envy—the gift of endowing all manner of things, both those which are beautiful in themselves and those which are not, with a glory not their own. This gift comes from the power of connecting one thought with another, or perhaps of allowing one idea unconsciously to suggest another, which is the root of all imagination. It is a gift that has brought sunshine and happiness to thousands of children, and is preserved by some in after life. All our great poets and painters have kept hold of this power, and many persons share vicariously in its delights as they read the glorious thoughts or gaze on the exquisite pictures that have been thus inspired. And yet there are some who scoff. They have forgotten their childhood’s gift, and are too self-satisfied to regret it. Not so the old poet Wordsworth. He felt the power leaving him. The brightness of his poetic imagination was on the wane, and he thus lamented it:— There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, The earth and every common sight, To me did seem Apparell’d in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe’er I may By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. There are many people who have never troubled to understand children and who are mightily sceptical as to the powers and the charm that is claimed for them. It is hardly possible to do better here than to ask such persons to read the example given below of a child’s poetical imaginings. The story is told in the first person, and is in the main literally true. It is called “I WONDERS” [Sidenote: “I Wonders”] “It was a lovely September day. I had any number of duties to fulfil at home. There was a pile of letters waiting to be answered, there was a magazine article hardly begun for which I had received an urgent demand from the publishers only that morning, and there was a meeting of school managers which my conscience told me I ought on no account to miss. But, as I said before, it was a simply lovely day and nature (human and the other) cried shame on staying indoors. Whether I should have had sufficient strength of mind to have resisted the temptation had I been left to fight it out with nature I shall never know, for the enemy received a sudden reinforcement before which I yielded ignominiously and at once. I had gone so far as to clear my blotting-pad of loose letters and to open my ink bottle when there came a tiny tap at the study door. ‘Come in!’ I called, and there ensued a curious twisting at the handle of the door, productive of no result. ‘Come in!’ I called again, and this time there was no further delay.