But it were equally unnecessary and useless to dilate on her fairy wanderings. Suffice it to say that so great is the beneficent liberality of this fascinating being, that every corner of her rich domain is open to the highest or lowest of mortals without reserve; and so lovely is she herself, and so bewitching is her company, that few, few indeed, are they who do not cherish her as a bosom friend and as the dearest of companions.
Bearing, however, her vagrant characteristics in mind, we shall not be surprised at the peculiar ideas some people entertain of her haunts, nor at the strange places in which they search for her person. One would hardly believe that hundreds of thousands have sought her through the smoke, din, and turmoil of those lines “where all antipathies to comfort dwell,”—the railroads; while others, more adventurous, plough the ocean deep, scale the mighty mountains, or soar amid the clouds for her; or, strange to say, have sought her in the battle field ’mid scenes of bloody death. Like Hotspur, such would pluck her—
“From the pale-faced moon;”
or would
“Dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground”
for her.
But she is a lady before whom strength and pride fall nerveless and abased; her gracious smiles are to be wooed, not commanded; her bright presence may be won, not forced;
“For spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright,
She glides o’er the earth like an angel of light.”
Possessing all the gentleness of her mother—Taste, she shrinks from everything rude or abrupt; and when, as has frequently been the case, persons have attempted to lay violent hands upon her, she has invariably eluded their vigilance, by leaving in her place, tricked out in her superabundant ornaments to blind them, her half-brother—Whim, who sprang from the same father—Wit, but by another mother—Humour. She herself, wanderer as she is, is not without her favourite haunts, in which she lingers as if even loath to quit them at all.
Finally, wherever yet the accomplished needlewoman has been found, in the Jewish tabernacle of old—in the Grecian dome where the “Tale of Troy divine” glowed on the canvass—or in the bower of the high-born beauty of the “bright days of the sword and the lance”—in the cell of the pale recluse—or in the turretted prison of the royal captive—there has Fancy been her devoted friend, her inseparable companion.