"But the forests of Domremy--those were the glories of the land; for
in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered
into tragic strength. Abbeys there were, and abbey windows,--'like
Moorish temples of the Hindoos,' that exercised even princely power
both in Touraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet
bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or
vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered
enough, were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep
solitude of the region; yet many enough to spread a network or
awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a
heathen wilderness." {26}

Now, you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods eighteen miles
deep to the centre; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for
your children yet, if you wish to keep them. But DO you wish it?
Suppose you had each, at the back of your houses, a garden, large
enough for your children to play in, with just as much lawn as would
give them room to run,--no more--and that you could not change your
abode; but that, if you chose, you could double your income, or
quadruple it, by digging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and
turning the flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it? I
hope not. I can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it
gave you income sixty-fold instead of four-fold.

Yet this is what you are doing with all England. The whole country
is but a little garden, not more than enough for your children to
run on the lawns of, if you would let them all run there. And this
little garden you will turn into furnace ground, and fill with heaps
of cinders, if you can; and those children of yours, not you, will
suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all banished; there are