The place was full of lovely floating bubbles, which gave to the room the strange wonderful brightness which it had.
. . . “They’re bubbles of happy laughter,” he said solemnly. “The little laughter bubbles the fairies give to all babies when they’re born, and keep on giving, giving, till the world won’t let the babies use them any more. Sometimes, very, very seldom, there are men and women who are still getting bubbles of happy laughter from the treasure house of Zur. They’re wonderful people to know, but they’re very scarce.”
The Magical House of Zur.
By Mary Dickerson Donahey.
Barse & Hopkins: New York. 1914.
Elephant's Picture Book 
What beautiful illustrations and sweet idea! I must go out and find this book. When I post about vintage illustrations in children’s books, I will be back to reblog!
Thank you – Glad you enjoyed the bubbles!
Elephant
PS I look forward to following you – looks interesting!
I find this all vaguely unsettling and slightly sinister, both the text and the look of the girl. Is that just me?
You are right . . . I think? There is something about the image . . . and the text is sad – laughter ends.
Elephant
It sort of looks partly photographic – all the little people are in different scales and the bubble = laughter thing is disturbing.
Elephant
I went back to the image to think about what is disturbing me (and maybe you) – some of it looks photographed almost and still I am a bit distracted by the proportions.
Elephant
I just keep on trying to work out if the balloon patterns spell anything…
Oh no! Do you think there are smoke signals?
Elephant
Just beautiful!
Thank you!
Elephant
This reminds me of Henry Darger’s work. Excellent excellent excellent.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Elephant