Two Little Pilgrims' Progress

As they had been carried away farther and farther, and the white wonder had begun to lose itself and fade into a white spirit of a strange and lovely thing, Meg had felt the familiar throb at her heart and the familiar lump in her throat. And she had broken into a piteous little cry.

“Oh, John Holt,” she said, “it is going, it is going, and we shall never see it again! For it will vanish away, it will vanish away!” And the tears rushed down her cheeks, and she hid her face on his arm.

But though he had laughed his short laugh, John Holt had made her lift up her head.

“No,” he said, “it won’t vanish away. It’s not one of the things that vanish. Things don’t vanish away that a million or so of people have seen as they’ve seen this. They stay where they’re not forgotten, and time doesn’t change them. They’re put where they can be passed on, and passed on again. And thoughts that grow out of them bring other ones. And what things may grow out of it that never would have been, and where the end is, the Lord only knows, for no human being can tell. It won’t vanish away.”

Dear little children and big ones, this is a Fairy Story. And why not? There are not many people who believe it, but fairy stories are happening every day. There are beautiful things in the world; there are many people with kind and generous hearts; there are those who do their work well, giving what is theirs to give, and being glad in the giving; there are birds in the skies, and flowers and leaves in the woods – and Spring comes every year. These make the fairy stories. Every fairy story has a moral, and this one has two. They are these:

The human creature is a strong thing – when it is a brave one.

Nature never made a human hand without putting into it something to give.