【每天读一点英文】gnuhpc注释版：The Sense of Wonder

Rachel Carson

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that, for most of us, that clear-eyed vision — that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring — is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the angels who are supposed to preside over all children, I would ask that their gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.
If children are to keep alive their natural sense of wonder without any such gift from the angels, they need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with the child the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often feel inadequate when confronted on the one hand with the eager, sensitive mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, "How can I possibly teach my child about nature — why, I don't even know one bird from another!"
I sincerely believe that for children, and for parents seeking to guide them, it is not half so important to know as it is to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love — then we wish for k