'In fashion; and what is fashionable is to be believed in. Why, you
might be the fashion again,' said the Owl excitedly. 'Why not? and then
people would believe in _you_. What a game it all is, to be sure! But
the fashions of this kind don't last,' the bird added; 'they get snuffed
out by the scientific men.'

'Tell me exactly who the scientific men are,' said the fairy. 'I have
heard so much about them since I came.'

'They are the men.' sighed the Owl, 'who go about with microscopes,
that is, instruments for looking into things as they are not meant to be
looked at and seeing them as they were never intended to be seen. They
have put everything under their microscopes, except stars and First
Causes; but they had to take telescopes to the stars, because they were
so far off; and First Causes they examined by stethoscopes, which each
philosopher applied to his own breast. But, as all the breasts are
different, they now call First Causes no business of theirs. They make
most things their business, though. They have had a good deal of trouble
with the poets, because the poets liked to put themselves and
their critics under their own microscopes, and they objected to the
microscopes of the scientific men. You know what poets are?'

'Yes, indeed,' said Queen Mab, feeling at home on the subject. 'I have
forgotten a good many things, I daresay, with living in Polynesia, but
not about the poets. I remember Shakespeare very well, and Herrick is at
my court in the Pacific.'

'Ah, he was a great man, Shakespeare, almost too large for a
microscope!' said the Owl reflectively. They have put him under a good
many since he died, however, especially German lenses. But we were
talking about the philosophers--another name for the scientific men
--the men who don't know everything.'

'I should have thought they did,' said Queen Mab.

'No,' said the Owl. 'It is the theologians who know everything, or at
least they used to do so. But lately it has become such a mark of mental
inferiority to know everything, that they are always casting it in each
other's teeth. It has grown into a war-cry with both parties: "You think
you know everything," and it is hard for a bird to find out how it all
began and what it is all about. I believe it sprang originally out of
the old microscope difficulty. The philosophers wanted to put theology
under the microscope, and the theologians excommunicated microscopes,
and said theology ought never to be