ight rain in the night.

Suddenly there was a great clamour, and I found that "The Battle of the
Books" had begun raging anew. Two figures entered in lively dispute. One
was dressed in plain homespun and the other wore a scholar's gown over a
suit of motley. I gathered from their conversation that they were Cotton
Mather and William Shakspere. Mather insisted that the witches in
"Macbeth" should be caught and hanged. Shakspere replied that the
witches had already suffered enough at the hands of commentators. They
were pushed aside by the twelve knights of the Round Table, who marched
in bearing on a salver the goose that laid golden eggs. "The Pope's
Mule" and "The Golden Bull" had a combat of history and fiction such as
I had read of in books, but never before witnessed. These little animals
were put to rout by a huge elephant which lumbered in with Rudyard
Kipling riding high on its trunk. The elephant changed suddenly to "a
rakish craft." (I do not know what a rakish craft is; but this was very
rakish and very crafty.) It must have been abandoned long ago by wild
pirates of the southern seas; for clinging to the rigging, and jovially
cheering as the ship went down, I made out a man with blazing eyes, clad
in a velveteen jacket. As the ship disappeared from sight, Falstaff
rushed to the rescue of the lonely navigator--and stole his purse! But
Miranda persuaded him to give it back. Stevenson said, "Who steals my
purse steals trash." Falstaff laughed and called this a good joke, as
good as any he had heard in his day.

This was the signal for a rushing swarm of quotations. They surged to
and fro, an inchoate throng of half finished phrases, mutilated
sentences, parodied sentiments, and brilliant metaphors. I could not
distinguish any phrases or ideas of my own making. I saw a poor, ragged,
shrunken sentence that might have been mine own catch the wings of a
fair idea with the light of genius shining like a halo about its head.

Ever and anon the dancers changed partners without invitation or
permission. Thoughts fell in love at sight, married in a measure, and
joined hands without previous courtship. An incongruity is the wedding
of two thoughts which have had no reasonable courtship, and marriages
without wooing are apt to lead to domestic discord, even to the breaking
up of an ancient, time-honoured family. Among the wedded couples were
certain similes hitherto inviolable in their bachelorhood and
spinsterhood, and