It is probable that the principal credit of miracles, visions, enchantments, and such extraordinary occurrences comes from the power of imagination, acting principally upon the minds of the common people, which are softer.
Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.
It is what the poets of Ireland used to be saying, that every brave man, good at fighting, and every man that could do great deeds and not be making much talk about them, was of the Sons of the Gael; and that every skilled man that had music and that did enchantments secretly, was of the Tuatha de Danaan.
We think, sometimes, there’s not a dragon left. Not one brave knight, not a single princess gliding through secret forests. . . What a pleasure to be wrong. Princesses, knights, enchantments and dragons, mystery and adventure. . . not only are they here-and-now, they’re all that ever lived on earth!