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  "id": "CH04.P019",
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    "original_publication_year": 1908,
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    "subjects": [
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      "Philosophy of religion",
      "Paradox",
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      "English literature, 20th century"
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  "text": "This is the tone of fairy tales, and it is certainly not lawlessness or even liberty, though men under a mean modern tyranny may think it liberty by comparison. People out of Portland Gaol might think Fleet Street free; but closer study will prove that both fairies and journalists are the slaves of duty. Fairy godmothers seem at least as strict as other godmothers. Cinderella received a coach out of Wonderland and a coachman out of nowhere, but she received a command--which might have come out of Brixton--that she should be back by twelve. Also, she had a glass slipper; and it cannot be a coincidence that glass is so common a substance in folk-lore. This princess lives in a glass castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all things in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle as the window-pane; and when the heavens were compared to the terrible crystal I can remember a shudder. I was afraid that God would drop the cosmos with a crash.",
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      "title": "Ezekiel’s crystal becomes a breakable cosmos",
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            "question": "How closely do the midnight condition and the glass imagery correspond to identifiable fairy tales, and where does Chesterton add his own interpretation?"
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            "approach": "Biblical references",
            "question": "What is the source and original setting of the terrible crystal, and does the biblical passage itself suggest that the universe may shatter?"
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      "title": "The midnight command and the meanings of fairy-tale glass",
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          "exact": "For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle",
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          "prefix": " if they will not throw stones. ",
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      "title": "A world that might not have been: wonder, gratitude, and the discipline of joy",
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