“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 unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve.  The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow.  Bluebeard’s wife may open all doors but one.  A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong.  A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong.  A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him, and he vanishes away.  A girl is given a box on condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world rush out at her.  A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that they do not eat one fruit:  they eat it, and lose their joy in all the fruits of the earth.