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So far the child. The reflective man finishes the stanza:
To keep with fairy lanterns
The world from growing old.
The world from growing old.
Therefore, even if there were no such beings as fairies, the children would have to invent them—pixies, nixies, gnomes, goblins, elves, kobbolds, and the rest—to account for the marvels that are happening all the while, but especially while we sleep. How else can we explain toadstools, for instance?
To this instant, constant, intellectual need of childhood no one in our day has ministered so bountifully or so whole-heartedly as Mr. Rackham; and the drawings in this book—as they were not invented to order, to serve some other fellow’s invention—prove that he does his spiriting con amore and29
