ponder upon the problems of existence, or lure us from the dusty high
road of the world, for a while, into the pleasant meadows of
dreamland? If only the latter, then let our heroes and our heroines
be not what men and women are, but what they should be. Let Angelina
be always spotless and Edwin always true. Let virtue ever triumph
over villainy in the last chapter; and let us assume that the
marriage service answers all the questions of the Sphinx.

Very pleasant are these fairy tales where the prince is always brave
and handsome; where the princess is always the best and most
beautiful princess that ever lived; where one knows the wicked people
at a glance by their ugliness and ill-temper, mistakes being thus
rendered impossible; where the good fairies are, by nature, more
powerful than the bad; where gloomy paths lead ever to fair palaces;
where the dragon is ever vanquished; and where well-behaved husbands
and wives can rely upon living happily ever afterwards. "The world
is too much with us, late and soon." It is wise to slip away from it
at times to fairyland. But, alas, we cannot live in fairyland, and
knowledge of its geography is of little help to us on our return to
the rugged country of reality.

Are not both branches of literature needful? By all means let us
dream, on midsummer nights, of fond lovers led through devious paths
to happiness by Puck; of virtuous dukes--one finds such in fairyland;
of fate subdued by faith and gentleness. But may we not also, in our
more serious humours, find satisfaction in thinking with Hamlet or
Coriolanus? May not both Dickens and Zola have their booths in
Vanity Fair? If literature is to be a help to us, as well as a
pastime, it must deal with the ugly as well as with the beautiful; it
must show us ourselves, not as we wish to appear, but as we know