the palate, a getting of the flavours beforehand. That involves a
certain dissipation of activity; but here all was concentrated. The
whole nature of the creature was strung to one issue only, to that
point when she could fling headlong into activity--an activity in
which every fibre and faculty would be used. A comparison of the
fairy-kind with human beings is never successful, because into our
images of human beings we always import self-consciousness. They know
what they are doing. Fairies do not. But wait a moment; there is a
reason. Human creatures, I think, know what they are doing only too
well, because performance never agrees with desire. They know what
they are doing because it is never exactly what they meant to do, or
what they wanted to do. Now, with fairies, desire to do and
performance are instinctive and simultaneous. If they think, they
think in action. In this they are far more like animals than human
creatures, although the form in which they appear to us, their shape
and colouring are like ours, enhanced and refined. Here now stood this
creature in the semblance of a woman glorified, quivering; and so,
perched high on his haunches, sat the shepherd's dog, and no one could
look at the two and not see their kinship. _Arrière-pensée_ they had
none--and all's said in that. They were shameless, and we are full of
shame. There's the difference; and it is a gulf.

After a while of this quivering suspense she gave a low call, a long
mellow and tremulous cry which, gentle as it was, startled by its
suddenness, as the unexpected call of a water-fowl out of the reeds of
a pond makes the heart jump toward the throat. It was like some bird's
call, but I know of no bird's with which to get a close comparison. It
had the soft quality, soft yet piercing, of a redshank's, but it
shuddered like an owl's. And she held it on as an owl does. But it was
very musical, soft and open-throated, and carried far. It was answered