Summer's Twilight

Poul Anderson, New America, "The Queen of Air and Darkness."

"...spires lifted among the stars..." (p. 218)

We want the spires to be real but Sherrinford destroys the illusion:

"...over the fountains and melodies lifted a gruesome growling. Fires leaped, thunders crashed." (p. 220)

Later he explains that archetypes include:

"The world, of magic, or glamour...dwellers in dusk and moonlight...'" (p. 228)

Titania tells William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet:

"...and bonny dragons that will come when you do call them and fly you through the honeyed amber skies.
"There is no night in my land, pretty boy, and it is forever summer's twilight."
-Neil Gaiman. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" IN Gaiman, The Sandman: Dream Country (New York, 1990), pp. 62-86 AT p. 78, panel 7.

Later, Titania explains more fully to twentieth century schoolboy, Timothy Hunter, that imagined worlds matter:

Titania: They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. Do you understand?
Timothy: No.
-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic III, The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), pages not numbered.

We would not be human without imagination. Sherrinford rightly destroys an illusion but understands the necessity of myths.