Incorruptible and steadfast in their allegiance,
they will neither offer pity nor will they allow peace to him who is not
loyal to their Master. And the hunted soul is stung by a fever of
restlessness that chases him back across "the long savannahs of the
blue" to earth again, with the recurring patter of the little feet
behind him.
Doubling upon the course, the quarry seeks the surest refuge to be found
on earth. Children are still here, and in their simplicity and innocence
there is surely a hiding-place that will suffice. Here is no danger of
earthly passion, no Titanic stride among the vast things of the
universe. Are they not the true idealists, the children? Are they not
the authentic guardians of fairyland and of heaven? Francis Thompson is
an authority here, and his love of children has expressed itself in much
exquisite prose and poetry. "Know you what it is to be a child? It is to
be something very different from the man of to-day. It is to have a
spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in
love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so
little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn
pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and
nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its
own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and to count yourself the king of
infinite space.
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