red times the picture of the terrible freedom of the fairies, who
typify the ultimate anarchy of art--

"Where nobody grows old or weary or wise,
Where nobody grows old or godly or grave."

But, after all (it is a shocking thing to say), I doubt whether Mr.
Yeats really knows the real philosophy of the fairies. He is not simple
enough; he is not stupid enough. Though I say it who should not, in good
sound human stupidity I would knock Mr. Yeats out any day. The fairies
like me better than Mr. Yeats; they can take me in more. And I have my
doubts whether this feeling of the free, wild spirits on the crest of
hill or wave is really the central and simple spirit of folk-lore. I
think the poets have made a mistake: because the world of the
fairy-tales is a brighter and more varied world than ours, they have
fancied it less moral; really it is brighter and more varied because it
is more moral. Suppose a man could be born in a modern prison. It is
impossible, of course, because nothing human can happen in a modern
prison, though it could sometimes in an ancient dungeon. A modern prison
is always inhuman, even when it is not inhumane. But suppose a man were
born in a modern prison, and grew accustomed to the deadly silence and
the disgusting indifference; and suppose he were then suddenly turned
loose upon the life and laughter of Fleet Street. He would, of course,
think that the literary men in Fleet Street were a free and happy race;
yet how sadly, how ironically, is this the reverse of the case! And so
again these toiling serfs in Fleet Street, when they catch a glimpse of
the fairies, think the fairies are utterly free. But fairies are like
journalists in this and many other respects. Fairies and journalists
have an apparent gaiety and a delusive beauty. Fairies and journalists
seem to be lovely and lawless; they seem to be both of them too
exquisite to descend to the ugliness of everyday duty. But it is an
illusion created by the sudden sweetness of their presence. Journalists
live under law; and so in fact does fairyland.

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs
from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can
only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is
the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs
upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven on
supernatural looms and blazing with un