t
and will, from which every true poem springs heavenward--is here the
zeal of the spirits for _morally reforming Swanhilda_; is, therefore,
that deep-seated attraction, which, as we have averred, essentially
allies the inclination of the Fairies to the moral conscience in our
own kind.

One end, therefore, grounds the whole story, although two and more
are proposed by _Sweetflower_. It is one that _satisfies_ the moral
reason in man; for it is no less than to cleanse and heal the will,
wounded with error, of a human creature. That other, which he
displays, with mock emphasis, of restitution to the downtrodden
fairyhood, is an exotic, fair and slight bud, grafted into the
sturdier indigenous stock. For let us fix but a steady look upon the
thing itself, and what is there before us? a whim, a trick of the
fancy, tickling the fancy. We are amused with a quaint calamity--a
panic of caps and cloaks. We laugh--we cannot help it--as the pigmy
assembly flies a thousand ways at once--grave councillors and
all--throwing terrified somersets--hiding under stones, roots--diving
into coney-burrows--"any where--any where"--vanishing out of
harm's--if not out of dismay's--reach. In a tale of the Fairies, THE
FANCY rules:--and the interest of such a misfortune, definite and not
infinite, is congenial to the spirit of the gay faculty which hovers
over, lives upon surfaces, and which flees abysses; which thence,
likewise, in the moral sphere, is equal to apprehending resentment of
a personal wrong, and a judicial assessment of damages--but NOT A
DISINTERESTED MORAL END.

What is our conclusion then? plainly that the dolorous overthrow of
the fairy divan is no better than an invention--the device of an
esthetical artist. We hold that Ernst Willkomm has _gratuitously_
bestowed upon us the disastrous catastrophe; that he has done this,
knowing the obligation which lies upon Fancy within her own chosen
domain to _create_, because--there, Fancy listens and reads. The
adroit Fairy delineator must wile over and reconcile the most
sportive, capricious, and self-willed spirit of our understanding, to
accept a purpose foreign to that spirit's habitual sympathies--a
purpose solemn and austere--THE MORAL PURPOSE OF RESCUING A
SIN-ENTANGLED HUMAN SOUL.

Or, if Ernst Willkomm shall guarantee to us, that the reminiscences
of his people have furnished him with the materials of this tale; if
he is, as we must needs hope, who have freely dealt with y