The Lilac Fairy Book — Createspace

'WHAT cases are you engaged in at present?' 'Are you stopping many teeth just now?' 'What peoplehave you converted lately?' Do ladies put these questions to the men-lawyers, dentists, clergymen,and so forth-who happen to sit next them at dinner parties?I do not know whether ladies thus indicate their interest in the occupations of their casualneighbours at the hospitable board. But if they do not know me, or do not know me well, theygenerally ask 'Are you writing anything now?' (as if they should ask a painter 'Are you paintinganything now?' or a lawyer 'Have you any cases at present?'). Sometimes they are more definite andinquire 'What are you writing now?' as if I must be writing something-which, indeed, is the case,though I dislike being reminded of it. It is an awkward question, because the fair being does not carea bawbee what I am writing; nor would she be much enlightened if I replied 'Madam, I am engagedon a treatise intended to prove that Normal is prior to Conceptional Totemism'-though thatanswer would be as true in fact as obscure in significance. The best plan seems to be to answer that Ihave entirely abandoned mere literature, and am contemplating a book on 'The Causes of EarlyBlight in the Potato,' a melancholy circumstance which threatens to deprive us of our chief esculentroot. The inquirer would never be undeceived. One nymph who, like the rest, could not keep off thehorrid topic of my occupation, said 'You never write anything but fairy books, do you?' A Frenchgentleman, too, an educationist and expert in portraits of Queen Mary, once sent me a newspaperarticle in which he had written that I was exclusively devoted to the composition of fairy books, andnothing else. He then came to England, visited me, and found that I knew rather more aboutportraits of Queen Mary than he did.