I have seen children attribute the characteristics of a living being to a piece of rough wood or to a stone.  They brought it handfuls of grass, and were absolutely sure that the wood or stone had eaten it when, as a matter of fact, I had carried it off without their noticing it.

Animals do not differentiate the quality of an action.  I have seen cats scratch at something too hot for them for a long time.  In this act on the part of the animal there is an idea of fighting something which can yield or perhaps die.

I think it is only an education, born of false vanity, that has robbed man of such beliefs.  I myself see no essential difference between the thought of a child who gives food to a piece of wood and the meaning of some of the libations in primitive religions.  Do we not attribute to trees an attachment to us stronger than life itself when we believe that one planted on the birthday of a child that sickens and dies will wither and dry up at the same time?

I have known things in pain.  I have known some which are dead.  The sad clothes of our departed wear out quickly.  They are often impregnated with the same disease as those who wore them.  They are one with them.

I have often considered objects which were wasting away.  Their disintegration is identical with our own.  They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses.  A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which move me.

When we become attached to things why do we believe that love is in us alone, and afterwards regard it as something external to us?  Who can prove that things are incapable of affection, or who can demonstrate their unconsciousness?  Was not that sculptor right who was buried holding in his hand a lump of the same clay that had obeyed his dream?  Did it not have the devotion of a faithful servant; did it not have a quality which we should admire all the more, because it had the virtue of devoting itself in silence, without selfish interest, and with the passiveness of faith?

Is there not something sublime and radiant in the thing that acts toward man, even as man acts toward God?  Does the poet know any more what impulse he obeys, than does the clay?  From the moment when they have both proved their inspiration, I believe equally in their consciousness, and I love both with the same love.

The sadness which disengages from things that have fallen into disuse is infinite.  In the attic of this house whose inhabitants I did not know, a little girl’s dress and her doll lie desolate.  And here is an iron-pointed staff which once bit into the earth of the green hills, and a sunbonnet now barely visible in the dim light from the garret-window.  They have been abandoned since many years, and I am wholly certain that they would be happy again to enjoy, the one the freshness of the moss, and the other the summer sky.