Children S Authors

"And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth."

"The while He sits whose name is Love, And waits, as Noah did, for the dove, To wit if she would fly to him.He waits for us, while, houseless things, We beat about with bruised wings On the dark floods and water-springs, The ruined world, the desolate sea; With open windows from the prime All night, all day, He waits sublime, Until the fulness of the time Decreed from His eternity."

"Is there never a chink in the world above Where they listen for words from below?"

"Let me be only sure; for sooth to tell The sorest dole is doubt."

"But two are walking apart forever And wave their hands for a mute farewell."

"Crowds of bees are giddy with clover Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet, Crowds of larks at their matins hang over, Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet."

"There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer stages of life."

"Emily had not one of those poverty-stricken natures which are never glad excepting for some special reason drawing them above themselves. She was naturally joyous and happy, unless under the pressure of an active sorrow that shaded her sky and quenched her sunshine. She lived in an elevated region full of love and wonder, taking kindly alike to reverence and to hope; but she was seldom excited, her feelings were not shallow enough to be easily troubled with excitement, or made fitful with agitation."

"Is it what we impart, or impute to nature from ourselves, that we chiefly lean upon? or does she truly impart of what is really in her to us?"

"I'm like a good clock," said Crayshaw, "I neither gain nor lose. I can strike, too."

"The most joyous and gladsome natures are often most keenly alive to impressions of reverence, and wonder, and awe. Emily's mind longed and craved to annex itself to all things fervent, deep, and real. As she walked on the common grass, she thought the better of it because the feet of Christ had trodden it also."

"It would be hard to say of any man that he is never right. If he is always thinking that he has forgotten a certain lady, surely he is right sometimes."

"A thing that is very unexpected and moderately strange, we meet with wide-opened eyes, with a start and perhaps exclamations; but a thing more than strange, utterly unaccounted for, quite unreasonable, and the last thing one could have supposed possible as coming from the person who demanded it, is met in far quieter fashion."

"Nature, before it has been touched by man, is almost always beautiful, strong, and cheerful in man's eyes; but nature, when he has once given it his culture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying his hand upon it, and touching it with his life. It has come to relish of his humanity, and it is so flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and permeated by his spirit, that if the stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it cannot for a long while do without him, and live for itself as fully and as well as it did before."

"It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for in real life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with the prints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written for grown-up people are kept almost clear of them."

"I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered."

"Our own faces, seen suddenly, will sometimes tell us things concerning ourselves that we did not suspect before."

"[O]ne must have a certain amount of both intelligence and knowledge to be amazed even at the most extraordinary things."

"[T]his is a woman-ridden age. Yet it is but fair to confess that all the former ones were man-ridden ages. What we want is a happy proportion."

"[U]gliness of the right sort is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty—it attracts observation and fixes the memory."

"[W]e wish for more in life, rather than for more of it."

"What a bore it is […] that the dull and uneducated and unimaginative should possess a dogged contempt for danger, and a kind of stupid fearlessness that we are never to have. I do not see how a highly imaginative man can have much animal courage."

"A great many people think of religion as if it was a game that they had to play with an August Opponent—a game at which both could not win, and yet they actually think they can play it unfairly. They want to cheat. But in that grand and awful game, it cannot be said that either wins unless both do."

"I do not know why a girl should be expected to talk well till she is at least twenty. There cannot be much in her, she may be prettily exacting, or charmingly modest, but her attractions must be personal, not intellectual."

"O sleep, we are beholden to thee, sleep, Thou bearest angels to us in the night, Saints out of heaven with palms. Seen by thy light Sorrow is some old tale that goeth not deep; Love is a pouting child."

"Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire— Our only greatness is that we aspire."

"How short our happy days appear! How long the sorrowful!"

"Work is its own best earthly need, Else have we none more than the sea-born throng Who wrought these marvellous isles that bloom afar."

"Like coral insects multitudinous The minutes are whereof our life is made. They build it up as in the deep's blue shade It grows, it comes to light, and then, and thus For both there is an end."

"I am glad to think I am not bound to make the wrong go right; But only to discover, and to do With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints."

"It is a comely fashion to be glad,— Joy is the grace we say to God."

"When our thoughts are born, Though they be good and humble, one should mind How they are reared, or some will go astray And shame their mother."

"The keen spirit Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thought Start into instant action, and at once Plans and performs, resolves and executes!"

"In men this blunder still you find,— All think their little set mankind."

"Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs."

"To those who know thee not, no words can paint! And those who know thee, know all words are faint!"

"... There's a joy, To the fond votaries of fame unknown, To hear the still small voice of conscience speak In whisp'ring plaudit to the silent soul."

"A crown! what is it?"

"Hannah More was one of the last of the group of learned ladies who had known Johnson, though Madame d'Arblay survived her for some years. Her writings have the old-fashioned flavour of the eighteenth century; while they now represent the teaching of the evangelical school, which looked up to Newton and Cecil, and of which William Wilberforce and his friends were the recognised political and social leaders. Though now out of fashion, they show not only high moral and religious purpose, but strong sense, as well as considerable intellectual vivacity. If their author showed a little self-complacency, the wonder is that her strong sense kept her from being spoilt by the uniform flattery poured upon her by her contemporaries. Her services to education at a time of general indifference deserve the highest praise, though her decided desire to keep the poor in their place is now out of fashion. In private life she seems to have been thoroughly amiable, kind to children, and as playful as her conscience would allow."

"That silence is one of the great arts of conversation is allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art, but even an eloquence in it."

"Small habits well pursued betimes May reach the dignity of crimes."

"Water, Loo! water, Loo! fetch me some water! There isn't a drop for a mile and a quarter! The ground is so hard and the ground is so dry I'm frightened my little red rose-bush will die."

"An author is known by the worlds he creates. The measure of his greatness is the degree of clarity and the consistency with which he builds his spirit’s habitation, the depth and height it offers the reader who enters it. Eleanor Farjeon’s world is construed of fantasy, romance, and an abounding yea-saying joy in the experience of life. It is the stuff that dreams are made of, and as dangerous as dynamite except for those who have genius in their blood, a compassionate heart, a sense of wonder at the multitudinous miracles to be met in one day’s living in this world, and the blessed proportion of wit, humor and nonsense. All these she has."

"No doubt she wrote "Morning Has Broken" for children, since they were so surely her preferred audience, but it is as engaging a piece of theology as one is likely to find. … the quality of the day has a head start for me if the worship includes Farjeon's poem/hymn. Farjeon subtitled her poem "For the First Day of Spring." I suspect that the inspiration came to her on such a day, and I agree that it is a perfect way to enter that lovely season. But the wonder of the poem, of course, is that on such a day the poet found herself transported to the first days of creation. … So it is that I recommend Farjeon's poem not only for the first day of spring, but as the right way to begin every day. What better than to look out on a new day — any new day — as an unspoiled gift from the hand of God, "fresh from the Word"? … One wonders if Farjeon expected children to get it? Personally, I am confident she did. She wasn’t one to talk down to her readers, nor was she one to underestimate their capacities. I suspect she knew that what children lack in intellectual training they make up for in innate perceptiveness — and perhaps especially in their refusing to let literalism get in the way of reality. We adults lose our appetite for Eden. After so many battles with the real world, as we experience it, we find it hard to imagine that things can be perfect. So it is that a child can sing "Sweet the rain's new fall, / Sunlit from heaven," while adults calculate what the rain will do for market futures or for the prospects of this afternoon's ball game. I remember a summer morning nearly half a century ago. As I returned from a walk, I picked up an earthworm from the sidewalk and took it to my then four-year old daughter, who couldn't have a dog because the parsonage was next door to the church. "I've got a pet, I've got a pet!" she squealed. I wouldn't trade ten seconds of childish ecstasy for a full day of adult disillusionment. Eleanor Farjeon was quite right to tell children that the first day of spring is a return to Eden and this blackbird that sings is "like the first bird." And she was more than right in thinking that children would get it."

"Great Britain has blessed the world of children with a number of poets and storytellers. … But perhaps no one was more loved by children in the British Isles or published more books than Eleanor Farjeon. She once said that she was "singing songs before she could write, and even before she could speak, and as soon as she could guide a pencil she began to write them down." When she died in 1965 at the age of eighty-four, she had published more than eighty books of stories and poems for children."

"Although her voice was faint she could still joke, for one day taking my hand she felt a large ring, which she raised close to her face for inspection. With a faint smile she whispered, "Ah, like Edith Sitwell I see." She was given the last rites by her priest and died on June 5th. Eleanor was buried in the romantic little churchyard which spans the side of Hampstead Hill between the Protestant church in Church Row and the Catholic church in Holly Walk. Her grave is generally smothered by a big rambler rose and is hard to discover. She was never keen on personal publicity."

"I was touched and surprised when, one day in her eighties, she said a little sadly, yet with the confidence of one who can face her own limitations, "I have always tried to use what little talent I had to the full". This remark had to do with the statement in the preface to Silver-Sand and Snow, … that – "In my youth I dreamed of being a 'real' poet, but half way through my life that dream died, and whatever figments of it remained went into writing songs and verses for children.""

"I was a little overworked. I had been reading a great number of manuscripts in the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of typescript was a burden to me. But before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten that it was a manuscript submitted for my judgment. I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, and humor. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my reading was done. My most earnest wish is that there may be many minds and imaginations among the American people who will be able to share that pleasure with me. For every one who finds delight in this book I can claim as a kindred spirit."

"He could not be captured, He could not be bought, His running was rhythm, His standing was thought; With one eye on sorrow And one eye on mirth, He galloped in heaven And gambolled on earth. And only the poet With wings to his brain Can mount him and ride him Without any rein, The stallion of heaven, The steed of the skies, The horse of the singer Who sings as he flies."

"His tail was a fountain. His nostrils were caves. His mane and his forelock Were musical waves. He neighed like a trumpet. He cooed like a dove. He was stronger than terror And swifter than love."