inversely, that all which preexists in the child finds its development
in the man. Rudiments and tendencies, which _might_ have found,
sometimes by accidental, _do_ not find, sometimes under the killing
frost of counter forces, _cannot_ find, their natural evolution.
Infancy, therefore, is to be viewed, not only as part of a larger world
that waits for its final complement in old age, but also as a separate
world itself; part of a continent, but also a distinct peninsula. Most
of what he has, the grown-up man inherits from his infant self; but
it does not follow that he always enters upon the whole of his natural
inheritance.

Childhood, therefore, in the midst of its intellectual weakness, and
sometimes even by means of this weakness, enjoys a limited privilege
of strength. The heart in this season of life is apprehensive, and,
where its sensibilities are profound, is endowed with a special power
of listening for the tones of truth--hidden, struggling, or remote;
for the knowledge being then narrow, the interest is narrow in the
objects of knowledge; consequently the sensibilities are not scattered,
are not multiplied, are not crushed and confounded (as afterwards they
are) under the burden of that distraction which lurks in the infinite
littleness of details.

That mighty silence which infancy is thus privileged by nature and by
position to enjoy cooperates with another source of power,--almost
peculiar to youth and youthful circumstances,--which Wordsworth also
was the first person to notice. It belongs to a profound experience
of the relations subsisting between ourselves and nature--that not
always are we called upon to seek; sometimes, and in childhood above
all, we are sought.