CHAPTER VII
Myth and Hero Tale
The world is a wonder-palace to the child.
"Everything hints at something more
magical and more marvelous which is to
come." The inanimate objects about him are
given living attributes; animals and flowers
are endowed by his fancy with human
thought and feeling. He talks to the clouds
and the stars; he peoples the sky with living
inhabitants; to him the winds are not
"forces of nature"; they are boisterous companions
or gentle friends.
This applies to the imaginative child, and there are more imaginative children than the most of us suspect. The imagination may be suppressed by older and "wiser" companions, or natural shyness may cause the imaginative fancies to remain unvoiced; but the fancies are there—bubbling over in fantastic follies or childish imagery, or kept in those hidden chambers of the soul to which grown-ups are forbidden entrance.
