p-bubble at the touch of
the finger of reason, where does it linger in more alluring beauty than
in "Ole Lukoeie" ("The Sandman"), "The Little Mermaid," or "The
Ice-Maiden"? There is a bloom, an indefinable, dewy freshness about the
grass, the flowers, the very light, and the children's sweet faces. And
so vivid--so marvellously vivid--as it all is. Listen to this from "Five
in a Pea-Pod:"

"There were five peas in one pod. They were green, and the pod was
green; and so they thought that the whole world was green. And that
was just as it should be. The pod grew and the peas grew; they
accommodated themselves to circumstances, sitting all in a row."

Or take this from "Little Tuk:"

"Yes, that was Little Tuk. His name wasn't really Tuk, but when he
couldn't speak plain, he used to call himself so. It was meant for
Charley; and it does very well, when one only knows it."

Or this incomparable bit of drollery from Hjalmar's dream in "The
Sandman:"

"There came a terrible wail from the table-drawer where Hjalmar's
school books lay. 'Whatever can that be?' said the Sandman. And he
went to the table and opened the drawer. It was the slate which was
in convulsions because a wrong number had got into the sum, so that
it was fairly falling to pieces. The slate-pencil tugged and jumped
at the end of its string, as if it had been a little dog that
wanted to help the sum. But he could not. There was a great
lamentation in Hjalmar's copy-book, too; it was quite terrible to
hear. On each page the large letters stood in a row, one underneath
the other, and each with a little one at its side. That was the
copy. And next to these were a few more letters, which thought they
looked just like the others. These were the ones Hjalmar had
written. But they lay down as if they had tumbled pell-mell over
the pencil lines upon which they were to stand.

"'Look, this is the way you should hold yourselves,' said the copy,
'sloping this way with a bold swing.' 'Oh, we should be very glad
to do that,' answered Hjalmar's letters, 'but we can't. We are so
weakly.' 'Then you must take medicine,' said the Sandman. 'Oh, no,
no,' cried they, and straightway they stood up so gracefully that
it was a pleasure to look at them."

This strikes me as having the very movement and all the delicious
whimsicality of a school