seen but can
never be written.

Sometimes he told his father that he had been into Fairy-land; but his
father, who was a brick-maker and lived in the wood, only laughed, and
cried aloud; "Next time you go, be sure to fetch back some fairy money."

One day the small boy, whose real name was Little Boy, told his father
that he had gone a mile into Fairy-land, and that there the people were
born old and grew younger all the time, and that on this account the
hands of their clocks went backward. When his father heard this, he said
that boy was only fit to sing songs and be in the sun, and would never
make bricks worth a penny. Then he added, sharply, that his son must get
to work at once and stop going over the fence to Fairy-land. So, after
that, Little Boy was set to dig clay and make bricks for a palace which
the King was building. He made a great many bricks of all colors, and
did seem to work so very hard that his father began to think he might in
time come to make the best of bricks. But if you are making bricks you
must not even be thinking of fairies, because something is sure to get
into the bricks and spoil them for building anything except a Spanish
castle or a palace of Aladdin.

I am sorry to say that while Little Boy made bricks and patted them well
and helped to bake them hard he was forever thinking of a Fairy who had
kissed him one day in the wood. This was a very strange Fairy, large,
with white limbs, and eyes which were full of joy for a child, but to
such as being old looked upon them, were, as the poet says, "lakes of
sadness." Perhaps, being little, you who read can understand this. I
cannot; but whoever has once seen this Fairy loves the sun and the woods
and all living creatures, and knows things without being taught, and
what men will say before they say it. Yet, while he knows all these
strange things, and what birds talk about, and what songs the winds sing
to the trees, he can never make good bricks.

And this was why Little Boy's bricks were badly made; on account of
which the King's palace, having many poor bricks in it, fell down one
fine day and cracked the crowns of twenty-three courtiers and had like
to have killed the King himself. This made the King very angry, so he
put on his crown and said wicked words, and told everybody he would give
one hundred pieces of gold to whoever would find the person who had made
the bad bricks. When Little Boy's father heard this, he knew it must
have