"Favoured mortal!" sighed near me a voice soft as a zephyr-breath.
I turned, and beheld a constellation of the radiant inhabitants of
this ethereal country clustered about a portal, whose frame-work was
of shining stones, and whose firm, but slender bars, were of purest
gold.--"Favoured mortal!" (the speaker was beside me)--"favoured beyond
even thine own conception, know that thou art permitted to behold the
Elfin Paradise--the true, the _veritable_ Fairy Land. Pollute it
not by the tone of mortal speech; to us are thy thoughts not unknown,
and partially are we permitted to gratify thy desire for information.
Thinkest thou--so indeed hath _man_ taught thee--that this sweet
world is but a vain illusion? Know then, that _we_, the Elfin Band,
are, in the order of the universe, spirits inferior to the angels, but
superior to thee. _We_ are the creatures and servants of the Most
High! (be His glorious name by all His infinite creation reverenced
and adored!)--and _we_, in conjunction with the most exalted
hierarchies of Heaven, are spirits, ministrant to _man_! Amongst
us, alas! are evil and wretched Fays, whose terrible study it is to
subvert our beneficent labours, to prevent our entrance into this
ethereal region, and in their own desolate and accursed country to
insult the veritable Fairy Land by employing their small remnant of
celestial power in creating imitations of it, as paltry as absurd. Know
also, O mortal! that whilst with, and for, man, we abide upon earth, we
have no land, no home;--like himself, 'strangers and pilgrims' are we;
nor is it until the period when our ministry is accomplished (and of the
finale of that period are none of us informed) that we are wafted on the
gentle breezes of heaven to this celestial planet, which, lighted by the
same sun which blesseth your own, is too small to be visible to the eyes
of its inquisitive philosophers. Hark! this day was a Fairy emancipated
from earthly thraldom, and the bells of the Golden City are singing for
joy!"