to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous
legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can
I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?

There were, then, these two first feelings, indefensible and
indisputable. The world was a shock, but it was not merely shocking;
existence was a surprise, but it was a pleasant surprise. In fact, all
my first views were exactly uttered in a riddle that stuck in my brain
from boyhood. The question was, "What did the first frog say?" And the
answer was, "Lord, how you made me jump!" That says succinctly all that
I am saying. God made the frog jump; but the frog prefers jumping. But
when these things are settled there enters the second great principle
of the fairy philosophy.

Any one can see it who will simply read "Grimm's Fairy Tales" or the
fine collections of Mr. Andrew Lang. For the pleasure of pedantry I will
call it the Doctrine of Conditional Joy. Touchstone talked of much
virtue in an "if"; according to elfin ethics all virtue is in an "if."
The note of the fairy utterance always is, "You may live in a palace of
gold and sapphire, _if_ you do not say the word 'cow'"; or "You may live
happily with the King's daughter, _if_ you do not show her an onion."
The vision always hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things
conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling
things that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden. Mr.
W.B. Yeats, in his exquisite and piercing elfin poetry, describes the
elves as lawless; they plunge in innocent anarchy on the unbridled
horses of the air--

"Ride on the crest of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame."