Naive

← Naivete | Naivete →

Index Entry

I often think that the motto on the shield of Milton Academy-- "Dare to be True"-- ought really to have been "Dare to be Naive." In 1927 I tried to recapture what it was to be young, to recapture naiveté . . . which is innate; I wanted to recapture the innate.

"Man cannot invent naiveté; it is innate.

"Like Chris Morley's poem:

In your unstained, transparent eyes

There is no conscience, no surprise

Life's queer conundrums you accept

Your strange divinity still kept.

So I think that divinity and naiveté must be akin."