f the laws of Nature blunts our spirits to the amazing character of
every detail which she reproduces. To catch again the wonder of common
things--

"the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower"

--is to pass from darkness into light, from falsehood to truth. "All the
towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately
upon one assumption: a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing
goes on repeating itself it is probably dead: a piece of clockwork." But
that is mere blindness to the mystery and surprise of everything that
goes to make up actual human experience. "The repetition in Nature
seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition, like that of an angry
schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again. The grass seemed
signalling to me with all its fingers at once; the crowded stars seemed
bent on being understood. The sun would make me see him if he rose a
thousand times."

That is one fact, which fairy tales emphasise--the constant demand for
wonder in the world, and the appropriateness and rightness of the
wondering attitude of mind, as man passes through his lifelong gallery
of celestial visions. The second fact is that all such vision is
conditional, and "hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things
conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling
things that are let loose depend upon one thing which is forbidden."
This is the very note of fairyland. "You may live in a palace of gold
and sapphire, _if_ you do not say the word 'cow'; or you may live
happily with the King's daughter, _if_ you do not show her an onion."
The conditions may seem arbitrary, but that is not the point. The point
is that there always _are_ conditions. The parallel with human life is
obvious. Many people in the modern world are eagerly bent on having the
reward without fulfilling the condition, but life is not made that way.
The whole problem of marriage is a case in point. Its conditions are
rigorous, and people on all sides are trying to relax them or to do away
with them. Similarly, all along the line, modern society is seeking to
live in a freedom which is in the nature of things incompatible with the
enjoyment or the prosperity of the human spirit. There is an _if_ in
everything. Life is like that, and we cannot alter it. Quarrel with the
seemingly arbitrary or unreasonable condition, and the whole fairy
palace vanishes. "Li