avour to recall the lost details, but
only the impression remains. That impression, however, warms the tone of
our whole day, and frames our thoughts as it were with precious stones.
Thus also it is with the memory of our childhood's idea of Fairyland:
the impression is recalled, the brain peers forward, the thoughts go on
tiptoe, and we feel that we have caught a glimpse of Beauty. Indeed, the
recollection of the atmosphere created in our youthful minds by means of
fairy tales is perhaps the most abundant of the sources of our knowledge
of Beauty in mature years.

I do not suppose that I am alone in declaring that some of the most
tender feelings of childhood are inspired by the misfortunes of the
Beast in the story of "Beauty and the Beast"; and the Sleeping Beauty is
the first love of many a small boy. Man, from his youth up, craves
enchantment; and though the business of life gives him no opportunity
for the indulging in day-dreams, there are few of us indeed who have not
at some time sought the phantom isles, and sought in vain. There is no
stormy night, when the wind moans through the trees, and the moon-rack
flies overhead, but takes something of its mystery from the recollection
of the enchantments of the dark ages. The sun does not sink into the sea
amidst the low-lying clouds but some vague thought is brought to mind of
the uncharted island whereon that maiden lies sleeping whose hair is
dark as heaven's wrath, and whose breast is white like alabaster in the
pathway of the moon. There she lies in the charmed circle under the
trees, where none may enter until that hour when some pale, lost mariner
shall surprise the secret of the pathway, and, coming suddenly upon her,
shall kiss her shadowed lips. Vague, elusive, undefined, as such
fancies must be, they yet tinge the thoughts of almost every man at
certain moments of his life, and set him searching for the enchantment
of bygone days. Eagerly he looks for those

"...Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn";

and it is the fact of their unreality that gives them their haunting
value.

The following story, preserved in a papyrus now at St Petersburg,
describes a mysterious island whereon there dwelt a monster most lovable
and most forlorn: a creature so tenderly drawn, indeed, that the reader
will not fail to enthrone him in the little company of the nobility of
the kingdom of the fairy tale. Tr