Look! Do you see how that light shines on the pavement in the rain? It sparkles like magic and spreads its light, despite the dark clouds that seem to discourage it. Such is the world as seen through the eyes of a child.
A Ramble
Hawthorne takes his little 5-year-old daughter, Annie, by the hand to wander and wonder aimlessly about the town. They set out for the town crier’s bell, which is announcing the arrival of the circus: Ding-dong!From the beginning, Hawthorne notes the difference between himself and Annie, like the bell’s different notes (ding-dong). His adult step is heavy and somber (dong). Yet Annie’s step is light and joyful, “as if she is forced to keep hold of [his] hand lest her feet should dance away from the earth” (ding).
They journey along, looking at the different people, places, and things that present themselves to their view. Hawthorne moralizes and philosophizes about these different subjects, seeing the objects in the windows as they are, while Annie trips along dancing to an organ-grinder’s music and seeing in the windows her reflection.
A Place of Wonder and Magic
But behold! The most magical place on earth for a child is the toy store. In its windows, fairies, kings, and queens dance and dine. Here, the child builds fantastical worlds that “ape the real one.” Here lives the doll that Annie desires so much.Hawthorne sees Annie’s imagination weave stories around this doll. He thinks how much more preferable is the child’s world of imagination to the adult world, where adults use each other like toys.
They continue on and journey through the newly arrived circus. They see an elephant, which gracefully bows to little Annie. They see lions, tigers, monkeys, a polar bear, and a hyena.
The more they see, the more Hawthorne’s view adopts a childlike wonder. Just as Annie imagines the doll’s story, Hawthorne weaves different stories around the animals. The polar bear dreams of his time on the ice, while the kingly tiger paces, remembering the grand deeds of his past life.
Through this story, Hawthorne realizes that, though he can never truly return to his childhood, he can adopt his daughter’s wonder. Such a wonder-filled ramble teaches much wisdom.
Others will discount such a ramble as nonsense. Yet Hawthorne exclaims, as Willy Wonka says in the 1971 film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”: “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”
A child’s sense of wonder can enable one to see light in the air, beauty in the normal, and magic everywhere. The world is a place of wonder and magic, and a place of “pure imagination,” so look for it and you will see it.
