Traveller’s Adventures At Home

In the one classic and perfect literary product that ever came out of Germany—I do not mean “Faust,” but Grimm’s Fairy Tales—there is a gorgeous story about a boy who went through a number of experiences without learning how to shudder. In one of them, I remember, he was sitting by the fireside and a pair of live legs fell down the chimney and walked about the room by themselves. Afterwards the rest fell down and joined up; but this was almost an anti-climax. Now that is very charming, and full of the best German domesticity. It suggests truly what wild adventures the traveller can find by stopping at home.

— G. K. Chesterton, The Crimes of England