perfect
specimen of the special fairy art of education of mortals. (I may, as a
_ci-devant_ member of this craft, be permitted to regret that the
business has been so largely taken over by persons who are neither
fairies in one sex, though there may be some exceptions here, nor
enchanters in the other, where exceptions are very rare indeed.) The
tutoress of the Princess Rosanie pursues her task, and pursues it
triumphantly, by dividing the child into twelve _interim_ personalities,
each of whom has a special characteristic--beauty, gentleness, vivacity,
discretion, and what not. At the close of the prescribed period they are
reunited, and their fortunate lover, who has hitherto been distracted
between the twelve _eidola_, is blessed with the compound Rosanie.
Although it is well known to be the rashest of things for a man to say
anything about women--although certainly sillier things have been said
by men about women than about any other subject, except, of course,
education itself--I venture to demur to the fairy method. Both _a
priori_ and from experience, I should say that unmixed Beauty would
become intolerably vain; that Discretion would grow into a hypocritical
and unpleasant prude; that Vivacity would develop into Vulgarity; and
that the reincarnation of the twelve would be one of the most
intolerable creatures ever known, if it were not that the impossibility
of the concentrated essences being united in one person, after
separation in several, would save the situation by annihilating her.

[Sidenote: _Prince Muguet et Princesse Zaza._]

Caylus, however, makes up in the third tale, _Le Prince Muguet et la
Princesse Zaza_, where, though the principal fairy, she of the _Hetre_,
is rather silly for one of the kind, Muguet is a not quite intolerable
coxcomb, and Zaza is positively charming. Her sufferings with a wicked
old woman are common; but her distress when the fairy makes her seem
ugly to the Prince, who has actually fallen in love with her true
portrait, and the scenes where the two meet under this spell, are among
the best in the whole _Cabinet_--which is a bold word. The others,
though naturally unequal, never or very seldom lack charm, for the
reason that Caylus knew what one has ventured to call the secret of
Fairyland--that it is the land of the attained Wish--and that he has the
art of scattering rememberable and generative phrases and fancies.
_Tourlou et Rirette_, one of the lightest of all, may not