'" 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.
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