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. If you tell a child about a horse, you don't say that it neighed, but you imitate the sound; and the child's laughter or fascinated attention compensates you for your loss of dignity. The more successfully you crow, roar, grunt, and mew, the more vividly you call up the image and demeanor of the animal you wish to represent, and the more impressed is your juvenile audience. Now, Andersen does all these things in print: a truly wonderful feat. Every variation in the pitch of the voice--I am almost tempted to say every change of expression in the story-teller's features--is contained in the text. He does not write his story, he tells it; and all the children of the whole wide world sit about him and listen with, eager, wide-eyed wonder to his marvellous improvisations.[18] [18] Brandes: Kritiker og Portraiter, p. 303.