ABSTRACT
There is a Land of Cockayne where all the world is merry, and at whose frontier cause and effect cease to have power; where vice is always innocent and never ugly; where men when drunk become in spired; where everyone is witty, or, if not that, then as gay as Mimi Pinson. No one grows old in this country, and those who are old already are endowed with an immortal youth of spirits. To be a true citizen of Cockayne one must starve now and then, but the Cockaynians, when they lack food, like the saints of old, always chance on a raven to bring them a Chateaubriand aux pommes, or, perhaps, are miraculously assisted to a dinner by a lion. It is always Christmas in the Land of Cockayne, and when it is not Christmas, it is summer. Good Fellowship is the patron saint of the people; everyone loves everyone else, or, if they don't, they have such quaint ways of hating one another. The houses are all attics, and every attic has the most beautiful view, generally over the Luxembourg Gardens, while just across in the next mansard is the daintiest little sempstress in the world. You can see her in a little ruffled corset-cover and silk petticoat, getting a meal for her bon ami any time you look out of the window.
