I sought my faery and I found her not.
I sought her upon the flowery fields of the South and on the ragged moors of the Northland; in the eternal snow of Alpine ridges and in the black folds of the nether earth; in the iridescent glitter of the boulevard and in the sounding desolation of the sea…. And I found her not.
I sought her amid the tobacco smoke and the cheap applause of popular assemblies and on the vanity fair of the professional social patron; in the brilliance of glittering feasts I sought her and in the twilit silence of domestic comfort…. And I found her not.
My eye thirsted for the sight of her but in my memory there was no mark by which I could have recognised her. Each image of her was confused and obliterated by the screaming colours of a new epoch.
Good and evil in a thousand shapes had come between me and my faery.
And the evil had grown into good for me, the good into evil.
But the sum of evil was greater than the sum of good. I bent low under the burden, and for a long space my eyes saw nothing but the ground to which I clung.
And therefore did I need my faery.
I needed her as a slave needs liberation, as the master needs a higher master, as the man of faith needs heaven.
In her I sought my resurrection, my strength to live, my defiant illusion.
And therefore was I famished for her.