The children
found him heavy; he seemed ponderous to them. And pondering he
certainly was--pondering the meaning of existence. The children, he
realised, were such brilliant comments upon existence; their
unconscious way of living, all they said and thought and did, but
especially all they believed, offered such bright interpretations,
such simple solutions of a million things. They lived so really, were
so really--alive. They never explained, they just accepted; and the
explanations given they placed at their true value, still asking,
"Yes, but what is the meaning of all that?" So close to Reality they
lived--before reason, cloaked and confused it with a million complex
explanations. That "Yes" and "Birthday" of Maria's were illuminating
examples.
Of this he was vaguely pondering as they walked along the sunny lanes
to church, and his conversation proved it. For conversation with
children meant answering endless questions merely, and the questions
were prompted by anything and everything they saw. Reality poked them;
they gave expression to it by a question. And nothing real was
trivial; the most careless detail was important, all being but a
single question--an affirmation: "We're alive, so everything else is
too!"
His conversation proved that he had almost reached that state of time-
less reality in which they lived.
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