# The midnight command and the meanings of fairy-tale glass

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P019](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P019/#char=831,943): "For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle"

The examples are recognizable, but their common meaning is Chesterton’s interpretation. In Andrew Lang’s *The Blue Fairy Book* (first published 1889; inspected in Project Gutenberg’s electronic text, #503), ‘Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper’ supplies both the fairy godmother’s midnight command and the glass shoes; its source note names Charles Perrault. Yet the shoes survive the midnight reversal of the other gifts, and neither breaks. In the same collection, ‘The Princess on the Glass Hill,’ attributed to Asbjørnsen and Moe, makes glass an obstacle because it is slippery: Cinderlad must ride to the princess at its summit. The hill’s fragility plays no part in that challenge. [Read both tales](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/503/pg503-images.html).

Chesterton gathers distinct properties of glass into one moral image: beauty can be endangered by an action. The tales substantiate his examples, but do not by themselves establish his universal explanation of the material. Indeed, Cinderella’s surviving slipper qualifies a simple equation of glass with precarious happiness: in that story it preserves recognition after the enchantment collapses.

## Sources

- [Andrew Lang, ed., The Blue Fairy Book](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/503/pg503-images.html), ‘Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper,’ godmother’s transformations through the slipper test and source note; ‘The Princess on the Glass Hill,’ royal proclamation, attempted ascents, and concluding source note. PG #503 electronic witness, updated 11 July 2026; collection first published 1889.
- [Fairy Tales at CU Boulder: Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper](https://www.colorado.edu/projects/fairy-tales/cinderella-or-little-glass-slipper), Heading and full citation give The Blue Fairy Book, 1889, pp. 64–71; consulted for bibliographic context, not as the inspected full text. The page’s separate Date Published field says 1899, an unresolved internal inconsistency.

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