Story of Narcissus

About Alice

"Could you not see," I said, " that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and ful of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairly tale is - what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is - what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tale the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novel the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos."

G. K. Chesterton, taken from the preface to "Alice in Wonderland" (by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)