A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II
“You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” […]
“And so,” he went on good-naturedly, “there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl.”
“Ought to be? Isn’t there?”
“No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”1
Discussing Act I, I alluded to the fact that my suspension of disbelief was more taxed by Helena‘s actions than by the whole idea of a fairy realm – how strange is that?
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 