Many years ago when I was young and reading collections of fairy tales
I remember in one book an occasion when two elfin sprites of some sort
were chatting and the subject or part of the subject was the
difference between the way children and adults think  and/or view life.

I do remember finding it a most interesting conversation because I
was, at the time, somewhere between childhood and growing up and I
recall being struck by how I could actually understand both perspectives.

Half a century later that small segment of a fairy tale popped back in
my mind and I wanted to read it again and see what understanding I
could make of it now that I?m old.   But hunting through collections
of fairy tales on several occasions has always turned up nothing. 
Either the situation never occurred in children?s fiction or I have
misremembered it these 60 or so years later.

The fairy tale would have been published in late Victorian times or
even somewhere in the first half of the 1900?s.  It could be either of
American or British origin.  At one time I thought it originated in a
tale in one of the Red or Green or other color Book[s] of Fairy Tales
but I leafed through all of them and could not find it -- although to
be fair I might have accidentally skipped over it.

Does anyone know where I can find that brief conversation between two
fairies or sprites?  I have a vague recollection that they may have
been brother and sister and were sitting around on flowers in a meadow
having this elusive conversation.  Strange how memory is.

Marcdrogin,

I read all the Andrew Lang fairy books (those colored books you
referred to) many times as a child and a few of them much more
recently than that.  I also read all the Grimm stories I could find,
all the Andersen stories, and a good many more.  I have no
recollection of such a conversation.  Doesn't mean it's not there, but
since that's a theme that interested me as a child and still does, I
might have been inclined to remember it.

However, your description makes me think of the flower fairies created
by Cicely Mary Barker.  There were verses with them, as I recall, but
I never liked to read the verses, just look at the pictures.  Could
one of those be what you remember?

Archae0pteryx
(another old bird, but not a researcher)

Thank you, Archaeopteryx, I should have remembered they were Andrew
Lang books.  My wife says they're all still tucked away upstairs in a
closet.  I do remember that I found verse annoying and wouldn't have
arbitrarily read text in verse.  What has my memory confused is that
recollections of reading specific books as a child is mixed with
memories of those and far far more books acquired years later for my
own children.  I'm pursuing this because I think it would be
interesting to read the "lost" conversation today knowing that what it
says of the way children think is not just a curious idea but
something I know I found absolutely accurate when reading it at the
end of childhood.  I'll be most embarrassed if the conversation turns
up and is only a few words long, having grown in my imagination over
more than half a century.

Your fairy tale doesn't ring a bell, but it does remind me of a
favorite portion of the Mary Poppins stories...

In the chapter entitled, ?John and Barbara?s Story,? a starling, a
wise bird, visits the nursery at Cherry Tree Lane and communes with
Mary Poppins and the babies, John and Barbara. Through their
conversation, we become aware that the babies, the starling, and Mary
Poppins understand the language of the wind, the stars, and the
sunlight. However, the starling laments that the children will soon
forget everything about where they came from. The children, of course,
vehemently protest. Soon, however, they do forget.

This theme is explored further in the chapter entitled, ?The New One?
in Mary Poppins Comes Back. When the baby Annabel is born, the
starling makes another visit, and he turns somersaults on the
windowsill, clapping his wings wildly together each time his head
comes up. ?What a treat!? he pants, when at last he stands up
straight. (Now he had someone to whom he could speak again.) The
starling asks Annabel to tell the fledgling that accompanies him to
tell where she came from:

?I am earth and air and fire and water,? she said softly. ? I come
from the Dark where all things have their beginnings. I come from the
sea and its tides, I come from the sky and its stars, I come from the
sun and its brightness?and I come from the forest of earth. Slowly, I
moved at first always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had
been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream
I awoke and came swiftly. I heard the stars singing as I came and I
felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came
through the dark, deep waters.? ?It was a long journey! A long journey
indeed!? said the starling softly, lifting his head from his breast.
?And ah, so soon forgotten!?

http://www.theosophical.org/theosophy/questmagazine/janfeb04/vachet/

Pinkfreud-ga --

What a lovely thing to enjoy reading on a lazy sunny Sunday midday.  I
wish it were the selection I've been searching for, but it isn't.  The
notion of forgetting is indeed implied or stated in what I'm seeking;
that children lose or forget whatever it is of childhood as they grow
out of childhood and are in some manner different in grasp or thinking
as adults.

I believe I did read the Mary Poppins books many years ago.  I wished
I'd remembered how beautifully written they were.

Now that I have the opportunity, let me say that I read others'
questions and answers whenever I have the chance and am always struck
by your expertise and presentation.  Thank you.