yet now there was no room for the old man. The gap had filled up,
life had flowed on. They had grieved for him, but they did not want
him back. He disturbed their arrangements; he was another useless
mouth to feed.

The pretty old story is full of parables, sad and sweet. But the
kernel of the tale is a warning to all who, for any wilfulness or
curiosity, however romantic or alluring the quest, forfeit their
place for an instant in the world. You cannot return. Life
accommodates itself to its losses, and however sincerely a man may
be lamented, yet if he returns, if he tries to claim his place, he
is in the way, de trop. No one has need of him.

An artist has most need of this warning, because he of all men is
tempted to enter the dark place in the hill, to see wonderful
things and to drink the oblivious wine. Let him rather keep his
hold on the world, at whatever sacrifice. Because by the time that
he has explored the home of the merry giants, and dreamed his
dream, the world to which he tries to tell the vision will heed it
not, but treat it as a fanciful tale.

All depends on the artist being in league with his day; if he is
born too early or too late, he has no hold on the world, no message
for it. Either he is a voice out of the past, an echo of old joys,
piping a forgotten message, or he is fanciful, unreal, visionary,
if he sees and tries to utter what shall be. By the time that
events confirm his foresight, the vitality of his prophecy is gone,
and he is only looked at with a curious admiration, as one that had
a certain clearness of vision, but no more; he is called into court
by the historian of tendency, but he has had no hold on living men.