FORTY-FIRST LESSON
On Curiosity.
"In unnecessary matters be not over curious."—Eccliasticus 3:24
Curiosity is the desire to know, to learn what you do not know; it is a most happy disposition, and quite praiseworthy when it leads to the knowledge of useful things, so as to adorn one's memory with interesting facts. Such curiosity, my children, can never be too much encouraged. It gives ardor to study; and assists us in overcoming courageously the difficulties thereof: it would be quite advantageous, particularly to you, who have so much to learn, and who often find study so tedious. There is, I know, a degree of curiosity perfectly natural at your age, but unfortunately it is not the one we are speaking of just now. The latter is a curiosity that can bring forth no good, because it is indiscreet and frivolous, because it leads you to disobey your parents, and can become harmful.
What I call frivolous curiosity is a longing to know things which have no interest either for others or for yourselves. All this insignificant news, that frivolity, those nothings, that you have so anxiously desired to know, have not made the slightest impression on you; you forget them directly after, and you have derived from them no other pleasure than the satisfying your curiosity for a second. This vain and frivolous disposition has the great disadvantage of accustoming your mind to a levity which will, at some later period, prevent your being interested in what is truly useful.
Curiosity often involves still greater inconvenience, both to yourselves and to your neighbor. Nearly always the curious child fails to be discreet; he wants to know the secrets of others, and really that is hardly less blamable than to reveal them. He becomes unbearable to all by his continual and repeated questions; he wants to be informed of your actions, of the most insignificant words, even of your intentions: it seems that you ought to give him an account of everything. If grown people speak in a whisper, the child, who seems busy at play, has listened to all, has heard all. If he is ordered out of the room, so that his elders may be able to speak more freely, led on by curiosity, he will remain near the door. If by chance a letter, or some written papers, are left on the table, the curious child hastens to catch hold of them to read them. Really I blush for the poor child, who, mastered by his bad inclinations, does not himself blush while committing such a shameful action. I told you, my dear children, that curiosity often leads to disobedience, and in this case it may become fatal. Children have been known to have poisoned themselves, and to have died after most cruel sufferings, from having tasted the contents of a phial, though it had been most carefully put aside. Other unfortunate children have killed themselves with firearms, which they had had the curiosity to handle, though they had been most strictly forbidden to do so.
I must not allow you to remain ignorant of the sad influence such a fault may exercise over the mind and heart. A child asks his mother a question, which she does not think fit to answer: he will repeat the same question to every one, until at last he meets with a person weak enough to consent to satisfy his indiscreet curiosity. This person, probably less able than his mother to answer the child in a true and proper manner, will give him incomplete explanations, from which the child will gather false or bad notions, which if without great importance as to the present, will not fail most surely to involve serious consequences in the future. The same may be said of those books you are forbidden to read, and which, when alone, you have perhaps been tempted to open. This would be a still more blamable disobedience, of which the effects are none the less to be feared.
To lessen your inclination to curiosity, I should like to try, my children, to preserve you from an error unfortunately too common at your age: you believe that the things it is thought not worth while to tell you, are more curious than others; and you suppose that the books you are forbidden to read are more interesting than all the others; on the contrary, it is to be presumed that you would not understand them, and that they can neither amuse nor instruct you.
I want to remind you here of some words of the holy book I so love to quote. One day, it was the eve of his death, our Lord, instructing his Apostles, spoke to them in this way: "I have still many things to tell you; but you could not bear them now." Is it not the same with you, my children? you are too young to know all, and not learned enough to understand everything. Wait: there are different degrees of knowledge as well as different pleasures for each age. Quite sufficient of what is beautiful, agreeable, and interesting is within your reach, and you need not envy your elders. It is for grown-up people to envy the blissful ignorance of your years of childhood, they who by sad experience know how many painful things are learnt as life advances!
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