Alice Meynell was an English essayist, critic, and poet who was also a leading suffragist, serving as vice-president of the Women Writers' Suffrage League, She and her husband Wilfrid Meynell were active in publishing and editing literary works including helping to launch the first works of Francis Thompson, author of "Hound of Heaven." This is a collection of her essays on children. The opening line for the first essay sets the stage. "To attend to a living child is to be baffled in your humour, disappointed of your pathos, and set freshly free from all the pre-occupations. You cannot anticipate him." - Summary by Larry Wilson