will not accept the incidents as part of their effectual belief. They
will imagine, to be sure, grotesque worlds, full of admirable and
interesting personages to whom strange things might have happened. So
much the better: this largeness of imagination is one of the
possessions that distinguish the better nurtured child from others
less fortunate."

The following passage from Stevenson's essay on _"Child Play"_[38]
will furnish an instance of children's aptitude for creating their
own dramatic atmosphere:

"When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a device
to enliven the course of a meal. He ate his with sugar, and explained
it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took mine with
milk, and explained it to be country suffering gradual inundation.
You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still
unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what inventions
were made; how his population lived in cabins on perches and traveled
on stilts, and how mine was always in boats; how the interest grew
furious as the last corner of safe ground was cut off on all sides and
grew smaller every moment; and how, in fine, the food was of
altogether secondary importance, and might even have been nauseous, so
long as we seasoned it with these dreams. But perhaps the most
exciting moments I ever had over a meal were in the case of calf's
foot jelly. It was hardly possible not to believe--and you may
be quite sure, so far from trying, I did all I could to favor the
illusion--that some part of it was hollow and that sooner or
later my spoon would lay open the secret tabernacle of the golden
rock. There, might some _Red-Beard_ await his hour; there might
one find the treasures of the Forty Thieves. And so I quarried on