Now, except in case of very young children, this could not possibly
be taken seriously. The least observant normal boy or girl would
recognize the hollowness of the pessimism that prevents an old man
from at least an attempt to rise from his chair.

The following I have chosen as repeated with intense appreciation and
much dramatic vigor by a little boy just five years old:


There was an old man who said: "Hush!
I perceive a young bird in that bush."
When they said: "Is it small?"
He replied, "Not at all.
It is four times as large as the bush."[29]


One of the most desirable of all elements to introduce into our
stories is that which encourages kinship with animals. With very
young children this is easy, because during those early years when the
mind is not clogged with knowledge, the sympathetic imagination
enables them to enter into the feeling of animals. Andersen has an
illustration of this point in his "Ice Maiden":

"Children who cannot talk yet can understand the language of fowls and
ducks quite well, and cats and dogs speak to them quite as plainly as
Father and Mother; but that is only when the children are very small,
and then even Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them
that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail.