Foundations

What do the following people all have in common?

SAINT AUGUSTINE

St LOUIS OF FRANCE

GIOTTO

ST CATHERINE OF SIENA

JEANNE D'ARC

MICHAEL ANGELO

QUEEN ELIZABETH

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

LOUIS XIII

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

SAMUEL JOHNSON

FREDERICK THE GREAT

THOMAS CARLYLE AND JANE WELSH

GEORGE WASHINGTON

GOETHE

MOZART

HORATIO NELSON

ARTHUR, DUKE OF WELLINGTON

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

SIR WALTER SCOTT

ELIZABETH FRY

GEORGE STEPHENSON

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN

HANS ANDERSEN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ALFRED TENNYSON

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

CHARLES DICKENS

ROBERT BROWNING

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

RICHARD WAGNER

JEAN-FRANCOIS MlLLET

CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER SISTERS

JOHN RUSKIN

QUEEN VICTORIA

GEORGE ELIOT

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

JENNY LIND

ROSA BONHEUR

JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON

SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS

LOUISA ALCOTT

CHARLES GEORGE GORDON

THOMAS ALVA EDISON

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

They all were once children, and they each grew up to do remarkable things. Also, they are each the subject of a chapter in the book "When They Were Children" by Amy Steedman.

Steedman introduces her book with this:

THE world has many stately palaces and great cathedrals that tower in their loveliness high above the humble dwellings around them, and their beauty and wonder are the delight of our eyes. We look up at their high walls, their gilded roofs, their slender spires pointing to the sky ; we admire the great strength and delicate tracery of their stonework, and whether in sunshine or under the stars, they stand out as monuments of what the mind of man has power to plan and his hands have skill to fashion.

But the foundations on which these buildings rest are hidden from our eyes, buried deep down in the darkness. Yet though unseen and seldom thought of, in every case there has been the patient laying of stone upon stone, without which the stately building could never have been reared.

It is much the same with the great lives which tower above the ordinary ones around us. Here and there we note them; we mark the noble deed, the courage, the heroism, the flash of genius, the habit of self-sacrifice, but we are apt to forget that all this did not come into being suddenly, that in each case there was a long time of preparation, a patient laying of foundations in the years of childhood, act by act, as stone is laid upon stone, before it was known what manner of life would be built up.

Taken from:


When they Were Children, by Amy Steedman, Illustrated by J. R. Skelton, undated, by the library acquired it in 1929. It may have been rebound by the library, but I'm not sure. The cover seems original, but the endpapers are some sort of brown kraft paper which seem different from the rest of the book to me. It seems to have been checked out one time. Only once. How sad. What a lonely little book this must have been. It's in beautiful condition, too. The endpapers seem not to be acid free or something, because the pages they touch are tanning, but the others are still creamy, clean, unmarked.

The library it came from was unobtrusive, or more so than usual, Instead of card envelopes and multiple stickers, there is diagonal strip of cardboard in the back, and a card would have slipped in. There is a single date due paper lightly pasted in the back, a few penciled marks, one or two red penciled numbers, and that's it.  There is hardly any shelfwear.
There are eight beautiful colored plates of the style pictured on the cover.  It's so lovely it makes my soul smile just to look at it.

It makes my soul giggle in giddy delight to actually touch it.


Published by Thomas Nelson, you can read the e-text online, but it's a clumsy rendition.