Kansas City daily journal., 1896-12-27
so lately come from the Divine presenc.
Wordsworth sang:

so lately come from the Divine presence!
Wordsworth sang:
Our birth is but sleep and forgetting;
The soul that rises with US. our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting.
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nake6ness,
But trailing clouds OF glory do We come
From God, who is our home;
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
Victor Hugos worship of childhood has
made his group of poems entitled The Art
of Being a Grandfather and his other child
studies in verse and prose eloquent with
lcve and tenderness.
Mrs. Browning has given US, in Mirilms :
child. the most perfect of babyhood, and
Robert Browning, in 'Pippa Passes" has
interpreted the ethical and spiritual in
fuence of childhood In each scene Of
this lyric drama Pippa by her song uneon-
sciously touches Il conscience and saves
a soul. 1t is the apotheosis of child worth
in the spiritual world.
mo children are better known than
Dickens David Copperfield and Paul Dom
hey. He did not know so much of girl
nature, though his Little Nell has possibly
caused more tears to be shed than any
other child in fiction. Dickens loved his
David best; but must confess that in the
days when used to be a devoted reader
of Dickens, Paul Dombey was my favor
lite.
George Eliot gives us her own childhood
the inner life of her own childhood-in
Maggie Tulliver. just as Mrs. Browning
does in Aurora Leigh I am not going to
attempt to draw parallel between George
Eliot and Mrs. Browning. We have had
too much of that.
"A friend said to ME a few years ago
that an acquaintance of ours had just pub
lished in review q parallel between Mrs.
Browning and George Eliot. What points
did she make?' / asked. oh. she proved
they were both women, and both wrote,
was the malicious rejoinder.
THE most effective use that George Eliot
makes of child life, from u purely literary
standpoint. is in 'Silas Mariner where it
serves as the dramatic motive The isola-
tion of the old weaver of Raveloe, through
losing faith inNGod and his fellow men, his
absorption in money boarding and the ut
ter wreck of his life when his treasure was
stolen, leads up 10 climax where in reach-
ing out to recover his Iost gold his hand
encounters soft, warm curls, and the soul
cure begins with the budding of new SYM
pathies and the occasion for renewed ac-
tivity.
Victor Hugo's Cosette fulflls the same
mission for Jean Vatican; and both these
authors simply elaborate what is suggested
in Browning's 'Pippa Passes centering on
like sunshine as she passes
Miss Ford then read the scene at the
grave of Grizel's mother. the conversation
between Tommy and Grizel, in which he
learned how she yearned FOR affection, and
the scene in which DIR. Mcqueen catches
the little runaways and decides to take
Grizel into his own home. During the read
ing of thes extracts a comparison of Grizel
with La Petite Fadette" and with Haw-
thornes Pearl in the Scarlet Letter"
threw new light on the subject and added
interest to the recital.
Child life is Christmas theme; but Miss
Ford did not treat it in the conventional
way. However, at the close of her address,
she called attention to the fact that the
new life philosophy that Christ taught, the
first clause of which was that lone must
become as little child to enter the king
dom of heaven" had given the poets of
childhood their clew and 10 Him might be
traced much of their inspiration. In the
worship OF the Christ-child is symboliZed
the alteration of divinity and innocence,
expressed by Richter in his Il love God
and little children
Miss Ford said, in closing, that now, while
all New York is discussing Ian Maclaren's
creed it might be in order to suggest that
Jean Paul Richter's creed might be added
to il without doing violence to its noble ex-
preston of the essentials of religion.
Among the other speakers were Mary
Lowe Dickinson, who told of the work of
the National Council of Women, and Mrs.
Gertrude V. MCGOWAN. of Tottenville, Sta
ten Island, who gave biographical sketch
of Whittier and read few selections from
his works.