[Gutenberg 28679] • Forgotten Tales of Long Ago

Excerpt from Forgotten Tales of Long Ago

It has been often said that infancy is the happiest state of human life, as being exempted from those serious cares and that anxiety which must ever in some degree be an attendant on a more advanced age but the author of the following little performance is of a different opinion, and has ever considered the troubles of children as a severe exercise to their patience when it is recollected that the vexations which they meet with are suited to the weakness of their understanding, and though trifling, perhaps, in themselves, acquire importance from their connection with the puerile inclinations and bounded views of an infant mind, where present gratification is the whole they can comprehend, and therefore suffer in proportion when their wishes are obstructed.

The main design of this publication is to prove from example that the pain of disappointment will be much increased by ill-temper, and that to yield to the force of necessity will be found wiser than vainly to oppose it. The contrast between the principal character with the peevishness of her cousins' temper is intended as an incitement to that placid disposition which will form the happiness of social life in every stage, and which, therefore, should not be thought beneath anyone's attention or undeserving of their cultivation.