It's knowledge in terms of the self and it works wonders in children,

Wonders will never cease.

The street bred a gritty self-reliance in its children. It was their frontier.

I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.

Our covetousness for miracles and wonders leads into self-deception

One of the few things I still miss from my Midwest childhood was this weird, deluded but unshakable conviction that everything around me existed all and only For Me. Am I the only one who had this queer deep sense as a kid? -- that everything exterior to me existed only insofar as it affected me somehow? -- that all things were somehow, via some occult adult activity, specially arranged for my benefit?