Magic. Gilbert Keith Chesterton
call the artistic temperament! Wordsworth, you know, and all that.
Morris. [Staring.] All what?
Duke. [Continuing to lecture with enthusiasm.] Why, everything's temperament, you know! It's her temperament to see the fairies. It's my temperament not to see the fairies. Why, I've walked all round the grounds twenty times and never saw a fairy. Well, it's like that about this wizard or whatever she calls it. For her there is somebody there. For us there would not be somebody there. Don't you see?
Morris. [Advancing excitedly.] Somebody there! What do you mean?
Duke. [Airily.] Well, you can't quite call it a man.
Morris. [Violently.] A man!
Duke. Well, as old Buffle used to say, what is a man?
Morris. [With a strong rise of the American accent.] With your permission, Duke, I eliminate old Buffle. Do you mean that anybody has had the tarnation coolness to suggest that some man…
Duke. Oh, not a man, you know. A magician, something mythical, you know.
Smith. Not a man, but a medicine man.
Doctor. [Grimly.] I am a medicine man.
Morris. And you don't look mythical, Doc.
Duke. Well, you know, the artistic temperament…
Morris. [Turning suddenly.] See here, Duke! In most commercial ways we're a pretty forward country. In these moral ways we're content to be a pretty backward country. And if you ask me whether I like my sister walking about the woods on a night like this! Well, I don't.
Duke. I am afraid you Americans aren't so advanced as I'd hoped. Why! as old Buffle used to say…
Smith. Whose voice is that?
Doctor. It is no business of mine to decide!
Morris. [Walking to the window.] You need not trouble. I know who it is.
[Still agitated.] Patricia, where have you been?
Patricia. [Rather wearily.] Oh! in Fairyland.
Doctor. [Genially.] And whereabouts is that?
Patricia. It's rather different from other places. It's either nowhere or it's wherever you are.
Morris. [Sharply.] Has it any inhabitants?
Patricia. Generally only two. Oneself and one's shadow. But whether he is my shadow or I am his shadow is never found out.
Morris. He? Who?
Patricia. [Seeming to understand his annoyance for the first time, and smiling.] Oh, you needn't get conventional about it, Morris. He is not a mortal.
Morris. What's his name?
Patricia. We have no names there. You never really know anybody if you know his name.
Morris. What does he look like?
Patricia. I have only met him in the twilight. He seems robed in a long cloak, with a peaked cap or hood like the elves in my nursery stories. Sometimes when I look out of the window here, I see him passing round this house like a shadow; and see his pointed hood, dark against the sunset or the rising of the moon.
Smith. What does he talk about?
Patricia. He tells me the truth. Very many true things. He is a wizard.
Morris. How do you know he's a wizard? I suppose he plays some tricks on you.
Patricia. I should know he was a wizard if he played no tricks. But once he stooped and picked up a stone and cast it into the air, and it flew up into God's heaven like a bird.
Morris. Was that what first made you think he was a wizard?
Patricia. Oh, no. When I first saw him he was tracing circles and pentacles in the grass and talking the language of the elves.
Morris. [Sceptically.] Do you know the language of the elves?
Patricia. Not until I heard it.
Morris. [Lowering his voice as if for his sister, but losing patience so completely that he talks much louder than he imagines.] See here, Patricia, I reckon this kind of thing is going to be the limit. I'm just not going to have you let in by some blamed tramp or fortune-teller because you choose to read minor poetry about the fairies. If this gipsy or whatever he is troubles you again…
Doctor. [Putting his hand on Morris's shoulder.] Come, you must allow a little more for poetry. We can't all feed on nothing but petrol.
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