Dog to bite, the Stick to beat, etc.; and each successive object chosen is the one which, by the law of its nature, is a master to the preceding one.  The Dog, by virtue of ability to bite, has power over the Pig; the Stick has ability to master the Dog; and Water in its power to quench is master over Fire.  Because of this intimate connection of cause and effect, this tale contributes in an unusual degree to the development of the child’s reason and memory.  He may remember the sequence of the plot or remake the tale if he forgets, by reasoning out the association between the successive objects from whom aid was asked.  It is through this association that the memory is exercised.

How Two Beetles Took Lodgings, in Tales of Laughter, is a realistic story which has a scientific spirit and interest.  Its basis of truth belongs to the realm of nature study.  Its narration of how two Beetles set up housekeeping by visiting an ant-hill and helping themselves to the home and furnishings of the Ants, would be very well suited either to precede or to follow the actual study of an ant-hill by the children.  The story gives a good glimpse of the home of the Ants, of their manner of living, and of the characteristics of the Ants and Beetles.  It is not science mollified, but a good story full of life and humor, with a basis of scientific truth.

Many tales not realistic contain a large realistic element.  The fine old romantic tales, such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Bremen Town Musicians, have a large realistic element.  In The Little Elves we have the realistic picture of a simple German home.  In Beauty and the Beast we have a realistic glimpse of the three various ways the wealthy merchant’s daughters accommodated themselves to their father’s loss of fortune, which reminds us of a parallel theme in Shakespeare’s King Lear.  In Red Riding Hood we have the realistic starting out of a little girl to visit her grandmother.  This realistic element appeals to the child because, as we have noted, it accords with his experience, and it therefore seems less strange.

In Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse the setting is realistic but becomes transformed into the romantic when natural doings of everyday life take on meaning from the unusual happening in the tale.  It is realistic for Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse to live in a little house, to get some corn, to make a pudding, and to put it on to boil.  But when the pot tumbled over and scalded Titty, the romantic began.  The stool which was real and common and stood by the door became transformed with animation, it talked:  “Titty’s dead, and so I weep”; and it hopped!  Then a broom caught the same animation from the same theme, and swept; a door jarred; a window creaked; an old form ran round the house; a walnut tree shed its leaves; a little bird moulted his pretty feathers; a little girl spilled her milk; a man tumbled off his ladder; and the walnut tree fell with a crash, upsetting everything and burying Titty in the ruins.  They all learned to convey the same message.  The common and customary became uncommon and unusual with extraordinary life, feeling, and lively movement.