characterized by precision, energy, delicacy, and personality, and at
the same time has the elements of its composition controlled by the
principles of sincerity, unity, mass, and coherence, it is said to
possess style. The fairy tale which is a classic characterized by that
perfect form called style, will possess the general qualities of
precision, energy, delicacy, and personality; and the elements of its
structure, its words, its sentences, its paragraphs, will display a
control of the principles of sincerity, unity, mass, and coherence.

A tale which well illustrates the literary form possible to the
child's tale, which may be said to possess that perfection of form we
call style, and which may be used with the distinct aim to improve the
child's English and perfect his language expression, is the modern
realistic fairy tale, _Oeyvind and Marit_.

_Oeyvind and Marit_ is so entirely realistic as to be excluded here,
but the talking rhymes which the Mother sings to Oeyvind bring in the
fairy element of the talking animals. In the form of this tale, the
perfect fidelity with which the words fit the meaning is
apparent--nothing seems superfluous. When Oeyvind asked Marit who she
was, she replied:--

"I am Marit, mother's little one, father's fiddle, the elf in the
house, granddaughter of Ole Nordistuen of the Heidi farms, four years
old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights, I!"

And Oeyvind replied:--

"Are you really?"--and drew a long breath which he had not
dared to do so long as she was speaking.