Harriet Martineau

“ Patience is no more like passiveness in its smallest exercises than in these great ones. Look at the ill-nursed passive infant,—how it hangs over its mother's shoulder, or slouches on her arm,—its eye dull, its face still, its movements slow: see how, when old enough to amuse itself, it sits on the floor by the hour together, jangling a bunch of keys, lulling itself with that noise, instead of making any of its own! ”

“ A child whose heart beats at shadows and the fitful sounds of the invisible wind, and who hides his face on his mother's bosom when the stars seem to be looking at him as they roll, is no philosopher at present; but he is likely to grow into one if this fear is duly trained into awe, humility, thoughtfulness, till, [Pg 30] united with knowledge, it becomes contemplation, and grows into that glorious courage which searches all through creation for ultimate truth. Out of Fear, too, grows our power of Pity. Without fear of pain, we could not enter into the pain of others. ”

“ Some well-meaning parents repress and even extinguish it, from the notion that this is the way to teach humility and self-denial. The consequence is that they break the mainspring of action in the child's mind, and everything comes to a stand. It is difficult to weaken the power of hope in a human being, and harder still to break it down; but when the thing is done, what sadder spectacle can be seen? Of all moving sights of woe, the most mournful is that of a hopeless child. A single glance at its listless limbs, its dull eye, its languid movements, shows the mischief that has been done. ”

“ That child was as truly an object of reverence to us as any patient sufferer of mature age.
The finest opportunity for the cultivation of patience in a household is where there are many children,—boys and girls,—with no great difference of years between them. Here, in the first place, the parents have need of all the faith and patience they have, to bear hopefully with the impatience of some of their children. There are moments, hours, and days, in the best households, when the conscientious and tender mother feels her heart rent by the spectacle of the quarrels of her children. ”

“ It is the rousing of these noble faculties which makes the hour of confidence one of exhilaration: and when the actual occasion of trial arises, when the cripple is left out of the cricket-match, and the deaf child misses the joke or entertaining story, and the hump-back hears the jibe behind him,—there is hope that the nobler faculties will be obedient to the promised call, and spread the calm of patience over the tumult of the sufferer's soul. ”

“ This entreaty still rings in my ears, and leads me so to use any influence I may now have over parents.
Is it not true that the strongest delight the human being ever has is in well-doing? Is it not true that this pleasure, like the pleasures of the eye and ear, the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the understanding and the imagination, will seek its own continuance and gratification, if it have fair play? ”

“ Think what it must be for a creature who once trembled before a new voice or a grave countenance, and writhed under a laugh of ridicule, and lied, at the cost of deep mental agony, to avoid a rebuke,—think what it must be to such a creature to find itself at last free and fearless,—enjoying such calm satisfaction within as to suffer nothing from the ridicule or the blame of those who do not know his mind, and so thoroughly acquainted with the true values of things as to have no dread of sickness or poverty, or the world's opinion, because no evil that can befal him can touch his peace! ”

“ The kingdom and the nation are ideas in his mind, as vivid as his idea of the personages he reads of. He feels when the nation is rising or falling; rejoices when a great and good man,—a sage, or a patriot, or a martyr—arises to bless his race, and burns with indignation and grief when the wicked have their own way. Is there not something here to make him thoughtful? and if there is a tinge of melancholy in his seriousness, may it not be allowed for? Suppose these two to read "Conversations on Chemistry," or "Scientific Dialogues,"—they will see and feel as differently as in the former cases. ”

“ I make these confessions willingly, in the hope that some inexperienced or busy parent may be awakened by them to observe whether the seeming apathy of a child be really from indifference, or the outward working of some hidden passion of fear.
Bold children are good and promising subjects; and it is a delightful thing to a parent's heart to see an infant fairly trying its powers against difficulties and obstacles—confronting nature in all seasons of light and darkness, of sunshine and tempest, in the face of strangers and friends alike, free and fearless. ”

“ Fear must be lost in reverence and love: but reverence and love could never be so powerful as they ought to be, if they were not first vivified by the power of Fear.
What the power of Love is, in all its forms, there is no need to declare to any one who has an eye and a heart. In the form of Pity, how it led Howard to spend his life in loathsome prisons, crowded with yet more loathsome guilt! In other forms, how it sustains the unwearied mother watching through long nights over her wailing infant! ”

“ It serves as a prodigious stimulus to the intellect; and the recollection never loses its brilliancy, to the latest period of life. It is worth more to novices than a whole year of continental travelling to practised rovers. The sunsets have sunk deep. The light-house, the dip in the waves, the shingle, the distant fleet—or the gorse on the common, the wood paths, with their wild flowers, the breezy down, the cottage in the lane,—call up a thrill in the heart of the town-bred child whenever the images are called up. ”

“ She became gradually borne down in health and spirits by the pressure of her trouble, her springs of pleasure all poisoned, her temper irritated and rendered morose, her intellectual pride puffed up to an insufferable haughtiness, and her conscience brought by perpetual pain of heart into a state of trembling soreness—all this, without one word ever being offered to her by any person whatever of sympathy or sorrow about her misfortune. ”

“ To go from a disorderly household where no one seems to have any time, and where one has to try hard all day long to keep one's temper, to a great man's house, where half a hundred people move about their business as if they were one; where all is quiet and freedom and leisure, as if the business of life went on of itself, leaving minds at liberty for other work, is one of the most striking contrasts I have met with in society. ”

“ It would come out more plainly than now that it is a bad and unhappy thing for men to have immoderate desires for money, or luxury, or fame, or to have quarrelsome tendencies, or to be subject to distrust and jealousy of others, or to be afraid of pain of body or mind. It would be more plain than ever that there is a soulfelt charm and nobleness and happiness in a spirit of reverence, of justice, of charity, of domestic attachment, and of devotion to truth. ”

“ The spirit of defiance had risen, and burst the bonds of conscience. Late rising,—the very latest,—curse as it is,—is better than this. What a struggle is saved in such cases—what a cost of energy, and health, and conscience, by a complete establishment of good habits, through the example of the parents! If the father be but happy enough to be able to take out his little troop into the fields, or merely for a stretch along the high road, in the freshness of the morning, what a gain there is on every hand! ”

“ This is charming; and so it is to see an infant fondling a kitten, or feeding the brood of chickens, and a girl singing lullaby to her doll. But it must ever be remembered, that this is the lowest form of human affection till it is trained into close connection with the higher sentiments. What it is when left to itself—and it will too probably be left to itself by parents who are satisfied with any manifestation of affection in children;—what it is when left to itself may be seen in some disgusting spectacles which occasionally meet our eyes among the mature and the old. ”

“ I believe no solitary child gets on well with book-learning as a part of the business of every day. The best tutors, the best books, the quietest school-room, will not avail, if the child's mind be not stirred and interested by something more congenial than the grammar and sums and maps he has to study. And every royal child is solitary, however many brothers and sisters he may have older and younger than himself. He has his own servants, his own tutor, his own separate place and people, so that he can never be jostled among other children, or lead the true life of childhood. ”

“ If it is unnatural for a multitude of children of the same age to herd together in an Infant school, it is at least as much so for a little creature to live alone among people with full-grown brains, and all occupied with the pursuits and interests of mature life. It is very well for the father to romp with his child at spare times, and for the mother to love it with her whole heart, and sympathise with it, with all the sympathy that such love can inspire. ”

“ If it be so, who is there that may not be impressed at last by the evident [Pg 156] truth that all that men have yet known and done is as nothing compared with what remains to be known and done: that the world-wide traveller is but the half-fledged bird flitting round the nest: that the philosopher is but as the ant which spends its little life in bringing home half a dozen grains of wheat: and that the most benevolent man is grieved that he can do so little for the solace of human misery, feeling himself like the child who tries to wipe away his brother's tears, but cannot heal his grief! ”

“ How strong is the Will of even a very young infant! How the little creature, if let alone, will labour and strive after anything it has set its mind upon! How it cries and struggles to get [Pg 71] the moon; and tumbles about the floor, as soon as it can sprawl, to accomplish any wish! And, if ill-trained, how pertinaciously it will refuse to do anything it ought! How completely may the wills of a whole party of grown people be set at nought by the self-will of a baby whose powers are allowed to run riot! ”

“ My own sense of it is so strong, and so confirmed by the experience of a life, that I feel that if I had the utmost power of thought and language that were ever possessed by the human being, I could do no justice to it:—that the only means of improving the morale to the utmost is by elevating the ideal of the individual. It is well to improve the conduct, and satisfy the conscience of the child by calling upon its resolution to amend its faults in detail,—to control its evil tempers, and overcome its indolence and laxity: but this is a temporary method, insufficient for its ultimate needs. ”

“ Man has also a wonderful power of conceiving of things about which he cannot reason. We do not know how it is, but the more we dwell on what is beautiful and striking, what is true before our eyes and impressive to our minds, the more able we become to conceive of things more beautiful, striking, and noble, which have never existed, but might well be true. None of our powers require more earnest and careful exercise than this grand one of the Imagination. Those in whom it is suppressed can never be capable of heroic acts, of lofty wisdom, of the purest happiness. ”

“ It may seem wearisome to say so often over that the example of the parents is the chief influence in the training of the child; but how can I help saying it when the fact is so? Is it not true that when the father of a family comes home and talks before his children, every word sinks into their minds? If he talks banter—banter so broad that his elder children laugh and understand, how should the little one on its mother's lap fail to be perplexed and misled? ”

“ Our best knowledge is but a glimmering—a dawn of light which we may hope will "increase more and more unto the perfect day." Our best goodness is so weak, so mixed, so inferior to what we [Pg 5] can conceive of, that we should blush to say that during any day of our lives we had been as good as we ought to be. It is as clear to us as to children, that there is room for improvement in both ways as long as we live. To us there is another question which children cannot enter into, and have no present business with;—whether human beings remain capable of improvement as long as they live. ”

“ Purified editions of noble books are monuments of wasted labour: for it ought to be with adults as it is with children;—their purity should be an all-sufficient purifier.
The second stage in the Intellectual Education of the Household children, then seems to be that in which the young creatures, having learned to use their own limbs and senses, and acquired the command of speech, begin to use their powers for the acquisition of materials for future thought. They listen, they look about them, they inquire, they read; and, above all, they dream. Life is for them all pictures. ”

“ A four-year-old child that can turn away and find amusement for itself when its mother cannot attend to it,—and swallow its tears when the rain will not let it sow its garden seeds, and stifle its sobs when it has knocked its elbow, and forgive any one who has broken its toy, and lie still without complaining when it is ill, gives the fairest promise of being able to bear serenely the severest calamities of after life. ”

“ If, for instance, a child appears to have too much of this faculty of Veneration—if it fancies a mystery in everything that happens, and yields too easily to its companions, and loves ghost stories which yet make it ill, and is always awe-struck and dreaming about something or other—that child is not to be laughed at, nor to be led to despise or make light of what it cannot understand. That child has not too much Veneration: for no one can ever have too much of the faculty. The mischief lies in his having too little of something else;—too little self-respect; too little hope ”

“ If waiting for play till baby has had its meal, how it stands at its mother's knee, making folds in her gown,—see-sawing its body perhaps, and fetching deep sighs, to throw off its impatience, but speaking no word—making no complaint till baby has had its dues. And when its turn is come, baby being laid down, what a spring into the lap, what a clasp of the neck is there! ”