Vi reviewed The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
The one who stops beside it
5.0 stars
Content warning Spoilers
Nobody in the city asks why the statue weeps. They admire it from the ground, decide it is beautiful and therefore happy, and that is enough for them. The only one who sees the truth of it is a swallow who lands there by accident, meaning only to sleep.
That is the whole story to me. The one who matters is not the prince; it is the creature who stops beside him and chooses to stay. Wilde gives the sharpest line to the Art Professor, who takes the statue down because "he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful." Then they melt it in the furnace, the lead heart snaps in two and will not melt, and they throw it on a dust-heap with the dead bird.
I read it in one sitting. The line that stayed is the smallest one: "the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost." That is how it goes, I think. Something breaks in you, and the world files it under the weather.
Five stars. It is a story for children that is honest with them about what kindness costs, and I don't know many that are.