A child, at once sensitive and imaginative, frequently passes into a state of half hallucination in which the products of fancy take on visible reality. George Sand, in her delightful reminiscences of childhood, relates more than one of these terrible prostrating hallucinations of the early years.[5] [5] See my account of George Sand's childhood, in _Studies of Childhood_, chap. xii. We see the same gloomy turn of the young imagination in the readiness with which children accept superstitions about ghosts, witches, and so forth. Those who are brought up in the country in contact with the superstitious beliefs of the peasant appear to imbibe them with great energy. This is true of George Sand, who gives us an interesting account of the legends of the French peasants, with whom when a little girl she was allowed to associate. American children, especially those who come under the influence of the beliefs of the negro and of the Indian, may, as that delightful book, _Tom Sawyer_, tells us, become quite experts in folk-lore. Even in England and among well-to-do people children will show an alarming facility in adopting the superstitious ideas of the servants. Much the same thing shows itself in children's romancings and in their preferences in the matter of stories. So far from these being always bright and amusing, they frequently show a very decided tinge of blackness. The young imagination seems to be especially plastic under the touch of the gruesome. It loves to be roused to its highest pitch of activity by the presentation of something fearsome, something which sends a wild tremor through the nerves. And even when the story is free from this touch of the dreadful it takes on seriousness by reason of the earnestness which the child's mind brings to it. Coming now to active play, we find here, too, in the region which seems to owe its very existence to the childish instinct of enjoyment, traces of the same seriousness. For most children, one suspects, play would become a tame thing were there not the fearful to conjure with. The favourite play-haunts, the dark corners under the table, behind the curtains, and so forth, show what a vital element of play is supplied by the excitement of the state of half-dread. It is in the games which set the young nerves gently shaking, when a robber has to be met or a giant attacked in his cave, that one sees best, I think, how terribly earnest children's play may become.