lawlessness or even liberty, though men under a mean modern tyranny
may think it liberty by comparison. People out of Portland
Gaol might think Fleet Street free; but closer study will prove
that both fairies and journalists are the slaves of duty.
Fairy godmothers seem at least as strict as other godmothers.
Cinderella received a coach out of Wonderland and a coachman out
of nowhere, but she received a command--which might have come out
of Brixton--that she should be back by twelve. Also, she had a
glass slipper; and it cannot be a coincidence that glass is so common
a substance in folk-lore. This princess lives in a glass castle,
that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all things in a mirror;
they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones.
For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact
that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most
easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment
also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world.
I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond,
but as brittle as the window-pane; and when the heavens were
compared to the terrible crystal I can remember a shudder.
I was afraid that God would drop the cosmos with a crash.

Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to
be perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant;
simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years.
Such, it seemed, was the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth;
the happiness depended on NOT DOING SOMETHING which you could at any
moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should
not do. Now, the point here is that to ME this did not seem unjust.
If the miller's third son said to the fairy, "Explain why I
must not stand on my head in the fairy palace," the other might