Little

“ In all poetry and fiction there is no child more delicious than the "little wench" with her loving heart and dreamy ways, her rash impulses and wild regrets, her fine susceptibilities and fiery jets of temper—in a word, her singularly fresh and vital nature. ”

“ January 29.—For supper, we are told, Milton used often to eat a few olives. That statement has frequently recurred to my mind. I never grow weary of the significance of little things. What do the so-called great things of life count for in the end, the fashion of a man's showing-off for the benefit of his fellows? It is the little things that give its savour or its bitterness to life, the little things that direct the currents of activity, the little things that alone really reveal the intimate depths of personality. ”

“ The little ones that cling to our knees, that pray beside us at bed-time, and the patter of whose feet is such music to us—they go, too, and we no more feel their kisses, or hear their tiny voices. Every day, every hour, we are losing something, that we called our own. ”

“ Then look at the faces of little children—those young immortals so guileless and innocent, so late from their Maker's hand, with the impress of heaven so fresh upon them—and how legibly can you see recorded there the feelings of their hearts! How unmistakably do their laughing faces tell of the exuberant life, the overflowing joy and gladness within their little bosoms! ”

“ My little boy was no longer a little boy, but some strange creature—I knew hot what—like to nothing I had ever seen or known; like no woman of the towns, and no savage of the plains, but better than both and different from either, inscrutable, sweet, yes, and very sad. ”

“ THE LITTLE BOY FOUND The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.
LAUGHING SONG When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it ”

“ It is like the chuckle of the adult, but not so loud, full, happy, and prolonged; it is shriller, and drops at the end to a plaintive, impatient sound, a little pathetic—a cry of the young bird to its too long absent mother. ”

“ And as she now appeared to me as a child in heart I could picture her as a child in years, in her little cotton frock and thin bare legs, a sunburnt little girl of eight, with the wide-eyed, eager, half-shy, half-trustful look, asking you, as the child ever asks, what you think?—what you feel? It was a wonderful world, and the world was the village, its streets of gritstone houses, the people living in them, the comedies and tragedies of their lives and deaths, and burials in the churchyard with grass and flowers to grow over them by-and-by. ”

“ Some of them are munching fruit, others playing hide-and-seek among the crowds, while many a tiny baby is nodding itself to sleep on its mother’s back or crying with all its might for a little attention. ”

“ Pain to the heart. Spin off thy distaff quickly,
While I sit alone at my distaff, I hear the voices of children,
⁠The voices of the children who are passing;
I hear their laughter too, and the sound of their feet,
⁠The little feet that run into other cottages ”

“ The beautiful fancy of the “Little People,” even if you do not give it to him, he will very probably get for himself; they will lurk always just out of reach of his desiring curious eyes, amidst the grass and flowers and behind the wainscot and in the shadows of the bedroom. ”

“ Janet.—Come, I want to go into the garden.
Mabel.—We must have Tiny with us.
Jan.—Of course, where is he, I wonder? Tiny! Tiny!
M.—Tiny! Tiny! Stupid little dog! He is always away when one wants him.
Jan.—Perhaps he is in the garden already.
M.—Perhaps he is. We'll go and see.
Jan.—Ah! here is Jack, perhaps he has seen Tiny.
Enter Jack.
M.—Have you seen Tiny?
Jack.—Tiny? No, I haven't, indeed. Oh dear me! I am so frightened. ”

“ We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in this beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I have seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. ”

“ I, too, am very tired of being a little boy, and I long to go out into the world and be a man like my gran'pa or my father or my uncles. With nothing to look at but those distant hills and the river in the valley, my eyes are wearied ”

“ I, a little child, a little ugly fellow, whom the children of the towns and villages hooted as I passed up their streets, could hold all these mature men and women, all these fathers of families and grandsires and granddames, shaking and shouting with laughter at the pranks of my mirth and my talent. ”

“ Certain looks and tones and gestures mould a child's nature, and my poor little one feels no thrill in the arm I put about her, no tremor comes into my voice, no softness into my eyes when I speak to her or take her up. ”

“ The young folks could hardly stifle a laugh at seeing him wheel awkwardly in, pay his respects with a grimace, and stumble in an unsuccessful attempt at politeness, while his gestures rendered his wry face, little sharp eyes, and twisted nose, the more conspicuous in their oddity. ”

“ There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid. ”

“ Even the women, though they cry sometimes when you sing-song the prayers, go on just the same when the little 'bless-you' is over. Why? Most of them know a better thing than you tell them. Here is the truth: you are little—eh, so very little. ”

“ One day the sweet, sad strains will sound out full and clear, and then we too shall, like the little children, throw our playthings all aside and follow. The loving hands will be stretched out to stay us, and the voices we have learned to listen for will cry to us to stop. ”

“ Poor little uncared-for, unwanted human atoms, they are not children. Children are bright-eyed, chubby, and shy. These are dingy, screeching elves, their tiny faces seared and withered, their baby laughter cracked and hoarse.
The spring of life and the spring of the year were alike meant to be cradled in the green lap of nature. To us in the town spring brings but its cold winds and drizzling rains. We must seek it among the leafless woods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great still hills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent voices. ”

“ As if the bronze arms had suddenly been taken from him and desiring to get them back, he flinched his eyes, a response to the sensation of peril. It was like a struggle against sleep, or the beginning of something terrible.
"Come on, beautiful ... whataya sitting here all by your lonesome little self for? Let's dance, cutie."
The words were coarse and drawn together. They smelt of whiskey and the warm fresh air was suddenly contaminated with filth and germs. It surrounded him closer and closer until it choked him. And his beautiful dream was replaced by a dreadful anticipation. ”

“ When she heard him sing and whistle in the woods that afternoon, she had thought him a young man. There was the joyousness and buoyancy of youth in his looks and voice. To-night, however, she saw that he was not a boy, but a man fully her own age. ”

“ An interesting study might be made of the words we apply to children in respect of size, little, small, wee, tiny, etc., very many of which, in their etymology, have no reference to childhood, or indeed to smallness. ”

“ There are here several young children; beautiful, flat-headed, broad-faced, little individuals. One of the little dears has taken something of a fancy to me, and is now hanging over me, and staring at my book with its great goggle eyes. ”

“ If you have ever listened to a little girl of five artlessly proceeding to tell a story, such as Little Black Sambo, which she had gathered from looking at a neighbor's book, but which she had not yet mastered sufficiently to grasp its central theme, reiterating the particular incidents with the enthusiasm and joy and narrative tone of the story-teller, you realized how the child likes to talk. ”

“ One little handful of a thing had a fine baby boy, nearly as big as herself, and she looked so fragile and pale, and pretty and lonely, and had such an appealing light in her big shadowed brown eyes, and such a pathetic droop at the corners of her sweet little mouth, that you longed to take her in your manly arms―baby and all―and comfort her. ”

“ Hearing no sound, the little one crept up noiselessly, and getting on the bed nestled closely to her mother, the large living eyes bright with a mixed expression of pity, love, and wonder, the little hand stroking the dead face with a fond caressing movement inexpressibly touching. ”

“ I know a youth who loves a little maid—
(Hey, but his face is a sight for to see!)
Silent is he, for he's modest and afraid—
(Hey, but he's timid as a youth can be!) ”

“ She had the common infantile trick of leading her own complete and absorbing existence—as busy as a little ant’s—far below the lives of the two grown-ups, whom she dutifully called parents while hardly aware of their presence. ”

“ Then all the little spirits feel the sweet waves, and creep with laughing eyes out of their dark corners; they stretch their delicate little crystal limbs, and plunge to bathe in the wine-flood, and plash and shoot, and rise quivering out again, and shake their sparkling spirits' wings, that, as they rustle, the clear drops fall from the little plumes. They run about and meet each other, and kiss a joyous life one from the other's lips. ”

“ A very little chap, who would no more have thought of going to bed without saying his prayers, than of going to bed without his supper, while the goodies were in sight, had just bidden everybody good-night, with a warm, loving kiss. ”

“ Having lost in one week, and ere the age of thirty, her three beautiful and promising boys, whose places were never supplied, the yearning tenderness of a heart which had continued to flow out toward the children of others, concentrated itself on the little one born in her house. ”

“ The miraculous little girl, we know, is not more uncommon than the Painted Lady, or White Admiral. And I will here give a picture of such a boy—the child associated in my mind with a spray of southernwood.
And after this impression, I shall try to give one or two of ordinary little boys. These live in memory like the little girls I have written about, not, it will be seen, because of their boy nature, seeing that the boy has nothing miraculous, nothing to capture the mind and register an enduring impression in it, as in the case of the girl ”

“ It's little I know what's in my heart,
What's in my mind it's little I know,
But there's that in me must up and start,
And it's little I care where my feet go. ”

“ It was the kiddies that saved the day. I was not a little bewildered, and tears stung my eyes. But with one accord the babies set up a howl at anything so inconceivable as a queer foreign thing with a tan head appearing in their midst. When peace was restored by natural methods, the fun began. ”

“ Littlegirl ran on, many a weary block, and though she met mother-looking women she dared speak to none of them for fear they would offer to take her back in an automobile, with some candy, to the people with whom she lived-without-belonging. ”

“ But all the wishing in the world is not a bit of use;
That Little Boy this very day he stands in his own shoes;
That Little Boy is still but little Master What-do-you-call,
As much as if that Little Boy had never wished at all!{200}
He eats his bread and butter, and he likes it very much ”

“ There, little girl, don’t read,
You’re fond of your books, I know,
But Brother might mope
If he had no hope
Of getting ahead of you.
It’s dull for a boy who cannot lead.
There, little girl, don’t read. ”

“ Then the elder child, who had spoken before, said:
"I will carry him ever so careful. You can come too."
"I can come, too," she murmured; "I can come, too!"
Silently she placed her baby in the little girl's arms. ”

“ It reminded me of another little girl somewhat older, who used to sit and play underneath my windows, and look down into the long green grass at her feet, and shake her head, and laugh and talk by the hour, as if she had a baby there, to the infinite amusement of all the neighborhood. That girl should have betaken herself to the stage. She was the very spirit of what may be called the familiar drama.
Talk as we may about children, their notions are sometimes both affecting and sublime ”

“ One, the thin one, whom I liked best, amused me during the evening by telling me how she got rid of bores—young, feeble little society men, brief of stature and of wit. "I endure the little creature as long as I can, and when he has buzzed all his little buzzes about the weather, and subjects suited to his size, there comes a pause—a long pause, for I don't help him. ”

“ It is just these first instinctive impulses of the girl-child, combined with her imitativeness and wonderful precocity, which make her so fascinating. But do they think? They do, but this first early thinking does not make them self-conscious as does their later thinking, to the spoiling of their charm. The thinking indeed begins remarkably early. I remember one child, a little five-year-old and one of my favourites, climbing to my knee one day and exhibiting a strangely grave face. ”

“ You know I'm old in some ways—in others—well, I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness—and I dread responsibility. ”