Little Poems in Prose

XX THE FAIRY GIFTS THE Fairies had met in solemn session to distribute their gifts among all the new-born, children who had come into life in the last twenty-four hours. All these old-fashioned and capricious sis- ters of Fate, all these bizarre mothers of joy and sorrow, were of many different kinds; some had a gloomy and sombre expression, others, a mischievous and clever one; some were young, who had always been young; oth- ers old, who had always been old. Every father who believed in fairies had come, each one carrying his new-born child in his arms. Their gifts, aptitudes, good luck, armouries of circumstance, were heaped up on one side of the Judge’s box like prizes upon the plat- form at a school feast day; but this case was different in this particular respect, that the gifts were not the reward of any effort, but quite on the contrary a favour accorded to him who had not yet lived, a favour able to deter-