The story was current in Germany before the time of the Grimms, and appeared in the collection of Caroline Stahl.  The rhyme,—­

     Snowy-white, rosy-red,
     Will ye strike your lover dead?

was taken from a popular song, and is found in a child’s story in Taschenbuch Minerva for 1813.

Snow White and Rose Red is full of many beauties; the characters are beautiful, the setting is beautiful, and the spirit of the whole is full of beauty.  There is sister-love; and mother-love—­not the selfish kind that loves but its own, but that similar to the rich growth of our modern times, when mother-love seeks to include those without the home.  There is genuine kindness that pours its sweetness on the Bear or on the Dwarf, that falls like the rain on the deserving and on the ungrateful; there is devotion to animals and a lack of enmity between man and beast; and there is a portrayal of the beauty of domestic life and of the charms of childhood in simple life—­its play, its pleasure, and its tasks.  This is all set as in two pictures whose sky is the golden glow of passion for the sun and the spring-time and summer it brings.  In the first picture, on the edge of the forest stands a little cottage before whose gate grow two rose-trees, a red rose-tree and a white rose-tree, not only symbols of the beauty of the spring-time and of the rich fruitage of summer, but also symbols typifying the more wondrous beauty of the character of the two children, Snow White and Rose Red.  In the second picture, a tall palace rears itself, before whose gate grow two rose-trees also, a red rose-tree and a white rose-tree, not only symbols of the same beauty of spring-time and fruitage of summer, but also symbols typifying the beauty of loveliness and the fairness of happiness and prosperity that guarded from harm the lives of the deserving Snow White and Rose Red, and continued to bless them to the close.

First, looking at the characters in this tale, we see a Mother who illustrates the richness of womanhood.  She managed her own home and kept it a place of beauty and cheer.  She had two daughters, both lovely, but very different.  She recognized this difference and respected it, and permitted each child to enjoy a delightful freedom to grow as was her nature.  She permitted the children to play but she also commanded willing obedience.  She arranged their work with fairness so that each had her share and each seemed free in doing that work to use her individual taste and judgment.  She taught her children to spin and to sew, and she read to them.  She told them about the guardian Angel who watched over them to keep them from harm.  She was not anxious when they were out of sight, for even when Snow White and Rose Red stayed in the wood all night and slept on the leaves, she had no fear, for no accident ever happened to them.  As a strong, noble woman, without fear, and full of love, pity, and fairness,—­George Eliot’s ideal of highest character,—­the Mother of Snow White and Rose Red has no equal in the fairy tales.