Page:A Study of Fairy Tales.djvu/104

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A STUDY OF FAIRY TALES

and then the Streamlet from which she drew the water asked, "Why do you break your pitcher, little Girl?"

And she replied:—

The little Spider 's burned herself,
And the Flea weeps;
The little Door creaks with the pain,
And the Broom sweeps;
The little Cart runs on so fast,
And the Ashes burn;
The little Tree shakes down its leaves,
Now it is my turn!

And then the Streamlet said, "Now I must flow."

And it flowed on and on, getting bigger and bigger, until it swallowed up the little Girl, the little Tree, the Ashes, the Cart, the Broom, the Door, the Flea, and at last, the Spider—all together.

Here we have a tale, which, in its language, well illustrates Stevenson's "pattern of style," especially as regards the harmony produced by the arrangement of letters. From the standpoint of style, this tale might be named, The Adventure of the Letter E; it illustrates the part the phonics of the tale may contribute to the effect of the setting. Follow the letter e in the opening of the tale, both as to the eye and the ear:—

A Spider and a Flea dwelt together in one house and brewed their beer in an egg-shell. One day when the Spider was stirring it up she fell in and burned herself. Thereupon the Flea began to scream. And then the Door asked, "Why are you screaming, little Flea?"

If we follow the e sound through the tale, we find it in Flea, beer, scream, creak, weeps, sweep, reason, heap,