"He himself traced the selection of his profession--that of an actor--to these boyish actions when he tried to imitate the fleet-footed Mercury, some character from fairyland or the "Arabian Nights," or some savage Indians. He thus imagined himself flying, and beheading monsters above the clouds, or penetrating to the centre of the earth in the form of some wicked magician, all the time passing through the most harrowing scenes. By a process of condensation, he fused ancient characters and episodes with persons and actions of reality, but his fancies usually began with some god-like or demon-like myth and gradually descended to human beings. "During the first few weeks of the analysis he was in the habit of merging into a dreamy state while reproducing associations, and often became so excited that the work had to be temporarily interrupted."[14] It was unnecessary to seek much further for the explanation of the obsession of torture. In large part, at all events, this was quite evidently the expression in consciousness of the gruesome images with which the patient's mind had been filled by the tales told him in his childhood. Though faded from conscious remembrance, they had remained with him subconsciously, to influence for evil the current of his conscious thoughts. Or, to put the matter tersely: Had tales of cruelty and violent death not been told him in his early days, he might never have been afflicted in manhood with his morbid longings to inflict pain. Of course, if this case stood by itself it would be of no great significance. But the fact is that during the past few years--or since physicians began to appreciate the part played by childhood impressions in causing mental and nervous disease--evidence has been accumulating to indicate that the almost universal custom of telling fairy tales to children does entail grave risks to their character and their health. The child of normal nervous constitution is likely to be affected only in character; the supersensitive, neurotic child may be hurried, by the tales he hears or reads, into some more or less serious mental or nervous malady. Let me hasten to add that this does not mean that the fairy tale should be entirely banished from the literature of childhood. It means only that parents should exercise more discrimination than they usually show in selecting fairy tales for their children. The rightly chosen fairy tale is indeed an almost indispensable aid in the early education of children, for reasons that are admirably summarised by an American educator, Mr. Percival Chubb, in these words: