I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.

From “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens

With a meticulous and elegant prose, Charles Dickens draws our attention to the children’s remarkable power of observation. In one of the short stories—“An Errand for God”—contained in my book “The Silver Teacup,” I make a comment about this issue: “As we get older we lose the ability to ascertain the real meaning of what is going on around us. We listen to other people’s words and their mere phonetics obscures the real messages.  As we look at their faces, we see the details of their physiognomy yet miss their true expression. As children, however, we receive information like antennae that can sense and see beyond the tangible reality.”