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and they also laughed delightedly, and the Thin Woman admitted that the fly had got the worse of it; but, after a while, she said that the part of the cow's back against which she was resting was bonier than anything she had ever leaned upon before, and that while thinness was a virtue no one had any right to be thin in lumps, and that on this count the cow was not to be commended. On hearing this the cow arose, and without another look at them it walked away into the dusky field. The Thin Woman told the children afterwards that she was sorry she had said anything, but she was unable to bring her self to apologise to the cow, and so they were forced to resume their journey in order to keep themselves warm. There was a sickle moon in the sky, a tender sword whose radiance stayed in its own high places and did not at all illumine the heavy world below; the glimmer of infrequent stars could also be seen with spacious, dark solitudes between them; but on the earth the darkness gathered in fold on fold of misty veiling, through which the trees uttered an earnest whisper, and the grasses lifted their little voices, and the wind crooned its thrilling, stern lament. As the travellers walked on, their eyes, flinching from the darkness, rested joyfully on the gracious moon, but that joy lasted only for a little time. The Thin Woman spoke to them curiously about the moon, and, indeed, she might speak with assurance on that subject, for her ancestors had sported in the cold beam through countless dim generations. "It is not known," said she, "that the fairies seldom dance for joy, but for sadness that they have been expelled from the sweet dawn, and therefore their midnight revels are only ceremonies to remind them of their happy state in the morning of the world before thoughtful curiosity and self-righteous moralities drove them from the kind face of the sun to the dark exile of midnight. It is strange that we may not be angry while looking on the moon. Indeed, no mere appetite or passion of any kind dare become imperative in the presence of the Shining One; and this, in a more limited degree, is true also of every form of beauty; for there is something in an absolute beauty to chide away the desires of materiality and yet to dissolve the spirit in ecstasies of fear and sadness. Beauty has no liking for Thought, but will send terror and sorrow on those who look upon her with intelligent eyes. We may neither be angry nor gay
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