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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.
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