Listen! We are beginning our story!
When we arrive at the end of it we shall,
it is to be hoped, know more than we do now.

hans christian andersen, “the snow queen”1

1. All direct quotes from “The Snow Queen” are from my own crumbling, tartan-bound copy of Tales from Hans Andersen published by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. in 1897. I suspect it of being an overly flowery, Victorian translation, but it is the one to which I am sentimentally attached.