"Little Kay was quite blue, nay almost black with cold, but he did not observe it, for the Snow Queen had kissed away the shrinking feeling he used to experience, and his heart was like a lump of ice. He was busied among the sharp icy fragments, laying and joining them together in every possible way, just as people do with what are called Chinese puzzles. Kay could form the most curious and complete figures -- this was the ice-puzzle of reason -- and in his eyes these figures were of the utmost importance. He often formed whole words, but there was one word he could never succeed in forming - it was Eternity. The Snow Queen had said to him, 'When thou canst put that figure together, thou shalt become thine own master and I will give thee the whole world, and a new pair of skates besides.'
But he could never do it."
The Snow Queen Hans Christian Andersen
Showing posts with label Hans Andersen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hans Andersen. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
"Penny plain, tuppence coloured"
"She reached into the carton on the bed and took out one of the metal rods. Like you, she said accusingly to the little figure attached to the end of it. A slide, she explained, handing it to me for closer inspection; the characters and the props were all attached to slides, making it possible to move them in and out between the panels.
The figure of the Don had been lithographed in four colours on heavy-stock paper and then cut out with scissors like a paper doll. He was part of a complete Don Giovanni set which had originally belonged to the Baroness von Schadenheim, and which the Baroness had given to Helle in token of their friendship -- although that, Helle said, was another story. Evidently the tradition of the model theatre came into existence in England around 1800; Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a charming essay on the subject, in which he described the pleasures of purchasing, for a mere two pennies, a set of lithographed sheets containing all the figures and props and backdrops needed to create a whole new world.
And it was a whole new world, Helle said, which she and Flo were about to create -- specifically, the bog world of The Girl who Trod on a Loaf's second act, the world Inger drops into when she takes that fateful step onto the loaf of bread."
The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf Kathryn Davis
The figure of the Don had been lithographed in four colours on heavy-stock paper and then cut out with scissors like a paper doll. He was part of a complete Don Giovanni set which had originally belonged to the Baroness von Schadenheim, and which the Baroness had given to Helle in token of their friendship -- although that, Helle said, was another story. Evidently the tradition of the model theatre came into existence in England around 1800; Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a charming essay on the subject, in which he described the pleasures of purchasing, for a mere two pennies, a set of lithographed sheets containing all the figures and props and backdrops needed to create a whole new world.
And it was a whole new world, Helle said, which she and Flo were about to create -- specifically, the bog world of The Girl who Trod on a Loaf's second act, the world Inger drops into when she takes that fateful step onto the loaf of bread."
The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf Kathryn Davis
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