" It is, doubtless, their authors'
jubilant enthusiasm over the freedom of the young Republic that has
caused the children of the more mature nation to delight in the
repetition of the patriotic verses. The youthful extravagance of
expression pervading every line is reechoed in the heart of the
schoolboy, who likes to imagine himself, before anything else, a
patriot. But until "Donder and Blitzen" pranced into the foreground as
Santa Claus' steeds, there was nothing in American nursery literature of
any lasting fame. Thereafter, as the custom of observing Christmas Day
gradually became popular, the perennial small child felt--until
automobiles sent reindeer to the limbo of bygone things--the thrill of
delight and fear over the annual visit of Santa Claus that the bigger
child experiences in exploding fire-crackers on the Fourth of July.
There are possibilities in both excitements which appeal to one of the
child's dearest possessions--his imagination.
It is this direct appeal to the imagination that surprises and delights
us in Mr.
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