Respect for the world's opinion and the
tyranny of fashion have never been satirized with more exquisite humor
than in the figure of the emperor who walks through the streets of his
capital in _robe de nuit_, followed by a procession of courtiers, who
all go into ecstasies over the splendor of his attire.
It was not only in the choice of his theme that Andersen was original.
He also created his style, though he borrowed much of it from the
nursery. "It was perfectly wonderful," "You would scarcely have believed
it," "One would have supposed that there was something the matter in the
poultry-yard, but there was nothing at all the matter"--such beginnings
are not what we expect to meet in dignified literature. They lack the
conventional style and deportment. No one but Andersen has ever dared to
employ them. As Dr. Brandes has said in his charming essay on Andersen,
no one has ever attempted, before him, to transfer the vivid mimicry and
gesticulation which accompany a nursery tale to the printed page.
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