has charming ways of relieving the strain. The favourite among all such
methods is his reversion to the subject of fairy tales. In "The Dragon's
Grandmother" he introduces us to the arch-sceptic who did not believe in
them--that fresh-coloured and short-sighted young man who had a curious
green tie and a very long neck. It happened that this young man had
called on him just when he had flung aside in disgust a heap of the
usual modern problem-novels, and fallen back with vehement contentment
on _Grimm's Fairy Tales_. "When he incidentally mentioned that he did
not believe in fairy tales, I broke out beyond control. 'Man,' I said,
'who are you that you should not believe in fairy tales? It is much
easier to believe in Blue Beard than to believe in you. A blue beard is
a misfortune; but there are green ties which are sins. It is far easier
to believe in a million fairy tales than to believe in one man who does
not like fairy tales. I would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and
swear to all his stories as if they were thirty-nine articles than say
seriously and out of my heart that there can be such a man as you; that
you are not some temptation of the devil or some delusion from the
void.'" The reason for this unexpected outbreak is a very deep one.
"Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild
and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of
routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the
fairy tale is--what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The
problem of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world?
In the fairy tale the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In
the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers
from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos."

In other words, the ideals, the ultimate convictions, are the
trustworthy things; the actual experience of life is often matter not
for distrust only but for scorn and contempt. And this philosophy Mr.
Chesterton learned in the nursery, from that "solemn and star-appointed
priestess," his nurse. The fairy tale, and not the problem-novel, is the
true presentment of human nature and of life. For, in the first place it
preserves in man the faculty most essential to human nature--the faculty
of wonder, without which no man can live. To regain that faculty is to
be born again, out of a false world into a true. The constant repetition
o