The Ten Little Fairies
VAINLY I try to recall from my recollections of yesterday, still vividly remembered, and from those of the long past, grown tenderly dim in the mists of intervening time, from whom I learned the powerfully moral story I am here going to repeat to children great and small, to men and their companions: I cannot determine from whom it was I learned it. Did I first read it in some old book laden with the dust of ages? Was it told to me by my mother, by my nurse, one evening when I would not go to sleep—or one night when, sleeping soundly, a fairy came and sang it to me in my slumber? I cannot tell. I cannot 172 remember. I have forgotten all the details, of which there only remains with me the subtle perfume—too fine and evanescent for me to seize it in its passage through my mind. But I retain—perfectly retain—the moral, which is the daughter of all things healthy and strong. The things which I am going to recount happened in a charming country—one of those bright lands ...