The Coming of the Fairies

By a curious coincidence, if it be indeed a coincidence, at the moment / when the evidence for the actual existence of fairies was brought to / my notice, I had just finished an article dealing with the subject, in / which I gave particulars of a number of cases where such creatures were / said to have been seen, and showed how very strong were the reasons / for supposing that some such forms of life exist. I now reproduce this / article, and I add to it another chapter containing fresh evidence / which reached me after the publication of the photographs in the / _Strand Magazine_.

We are accustomed to the idea of amphibious creatures who may dwell / unseen and unknown in the depths of the waters, and then some day be / spied sunning themselves upon a sandbank, whence they slip into the / unseen once more. If such appearances were rare, and if it should so / happen that some saw them more clearly than others, then a very pretty / controversy would arise, for the sceptics would say, with every show of / reason, "Our experience is that only land creatures live on the land, / and we utterly refuse to believe in things which slip in and out of the / water; if you will demonstrate them to us we will begin to consider the / question. " Faced by so reasonable an opposition, the others could only / mutter that they had seen them with their own eyes, but that they could / not command their movements. The sceptics would hold the field.