Children

<h2>EXPRESSION</h2> <p>Strange to say, the eyes of children, whose minds are so small, express intelligence better than do the greater number of adult eyes.&nbsp; David Garrick&rsquo;s were evidently unpreoccupied, like theirs.&nbsp; The look of intelligence is outward&mdash;frankly directed upon external things; it is observant, and therefore mobile without inner restlessness.&nbsp; For restless eyes are the least observant of all&mdash;they move by a kind of distraction.&nbsp; The looks of observant eyes, moving with the living things they keep in sight, have many pauses as well as flights.&nbsp; This is the action of intelligence, whereas the eyes of intellect are detained or darkened.</p> <p>Rational perception, with all its phases of humour, are best expressed by a child, who has few second thoughts to divide the image of his momentary feeling.&nbsp; His simplicity adds much to the manifestation of his intelligence.&nbsp; The child is the last and lowest of rational creatures, for in him the &ldquo;rational soul&rdquo; closes its long downward flight with the bright final revelation.</p> <p>He has also the chief beauty of the irrational soul of the mind, that is, of the lower animal&mdash;which is singleness.&nbsp; The simplicity, the integrity, the one thing at a time, of a good animal&rsquo;s eyes is a great beauty, and is apt to cause us to exaggerate our sense of their expressiveness.&nbsp; An animal&rsquo;s eyes, at their best, are very slightly expressive; languor or alertness, the quick expectation, even the aloofness of doubt they are able to show, but the showing is mechanical; the human sentiment of the spectator adds the rest.</p> <p>All this simplicity the child has, at moments, with the divisions and delicacies of the rational soul, also.&nbsp; His looks express the first, the last, and the clearest humanity.&nbsp; He is the first by his youth and the last by his lowliness.&nbsp; He is the beginning and the result of the creation of man.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />