he
second grade--where the purpose of the story is veiled, and the satire
or humor is conveyed through a very telling word or two.--"'I will
send my _old, honest_ minister to the weavers,' thought the Emperor.
And the old, honest minister went to the room where the two swindlers
sat working at empty looms. 'Heaven preserve me!' thought the old
minister, opening his eyes wide. 'Why, I cannot see anything!'--But he
did not say so." The entire tale is a concrete representation of one
point; and the concreteness is so explicit that at the close of the
story its philosophy easily forms itself into the implied message of
worldly wisdom: People are afraid to speak truth concerning much
through cowardice or through fear of acting otherwise than all the
world. The philosophy underlying _The Steadfast Tin Soldier_ is even
finer as a bit of truth than the perfect art of the literary story:
That what happens in life does not matter so much as the way you take
it. The Tin Soldier always remained steadfast, no matter what
happened. Kipling's _Elephant's Child_ is more charming than ever when
looked at from the standpoint of its philosophy. It might be
interpreted as an allegory answering the question, "How should one get
experience?" a theme which cannot be said to lack universal appeal.
_The Ugly Duckling_ is full of sayings of philosophy that contribute
to its complete message. The Cat and the Hen to whom the duckling
crept for refuge said, "We and the world," and could not bear a
difference of opinion. "You may believe me," said the Hen, "because I
tell you the truth. That is the way to tell your friends." Their
treatment of the Duckling expressed the philosophy: "If you can't do
what I can you're no good." The Hen said to him, "You have nothing to
do, that's why you have such strange ideas." The Duckling expressed
his philosophy by saying quietly, "You don't understand me."

These bits of philosophy often become compressed into expressions
which to-day we recognize as proverbs. The words of the Mother Duck,
"Into the water he goes if I have to kick him in," became a
Scandinavian proverb. "A little bird told it," a common saying of
to-day, appears in Andersen's _Nightingale_ and in _Thumbelina_. But
this saying is traceable at least to the third story of the fourth
night in Straparola, translated by Keightley, _The Dancing Water, the
Singing Apple, and the Beautiful Green Bird_, in which the bird tells
the King that his three gue