d, and the long parted lovers meet and embrace
in a paradise of light and pink gauze, the grates that must be scrubbed
to-morrow. All bands and trappings of toil are for one hour loosened by
the hands of imaginative sympathy. What happiness a single theatre can
contain! And those of maturer years, or of more meditative temperament,
sitting at the pantomime, can extract out of the shifting scenes
meanings suitable to themselves; for the pantomime is a symbol or
adumbration of human life. Have we not all known Harlequin, who rules
the roast, and has the pretty Columbine to himself? Do we not all know
that rogue of a clown with his peculating fingers, who brazens out of
every scrape, and who conquers the world by good humour and ready wit?
And have we not seen Pantaloons not a few, whose fate it is to get all
the kicks and lose all the halfpence, to fall through all the trap
doors, break their shins over all the barrows, and be forever captured
by the policeman, while the true pilferer, the clown, makes his escape
with the booty in his possession? Methinks I know the realities of which
these things are but the shadows; have met with them in business, have
sat with them at dinner. But to-night no such notions as these intrude;
and when the torrent of fun, and transformation, and practical joking
which rushed out of the beautiful fairy world gathered up again, the
high-heaped happiness of the theatre will disperse itself, and the
Christmas pantomime will be a pleasant memory the whole year through.
Thousands on thousands of people are having their midriffs tickled at
this moment; in fancy I see their lighted faces, in memory I see their
mirth.

By this time I should think every Christmas dinner at Dreamthorp or
elsewhere has come to an end. Even now in the great cities the theatres
will be dispersing. The clown has wiped the paint off his face.
Harlequin has laid aside his wand, and divested himself of his
glittering raiment; Pantaloon, after refreshing himself with a pint of
porter, is rubbing his aching joints; and Columbine, wrapped up in a
shawl, and with sleepy eyelids, has gone home in a cab. Soon, in the
great theatre, the lights will be put out, and the empty stage will be
left to ghosts. Hark! midnight from the church tower vibrates through
the frosty air. I look out on the brilliant heaven, and see a milky way
of powdery splendour wandering through it, and clusters and knots of
stars and planets shining serenely in