held in great respect. Their extraordinary proceedings
nearly broke up the dance. But the fatuity of their union was evident to
them, and they parted. Other similes seemed to have the habit of living
in discord. They had been many times married and divorced. They belonged
to the notorious society of Mixed Metaphors.

A company of phantoms floated in and out wearing tantalizing garments
of oblivion. They seemed about to dance, then vanished. They reappeared
half a dozen times, but never unveiled their faces. The imp Curiosity
pulled Memory by the sleeve and said, "Why do they run away? 'Tis
strange knavery!" Out ran Memory to capture them. After a great deal of
racing and puffing and collision it apprehended some of the fugitives
and brought them in. But when it tore off their masks, lo! some were
disappointingly commonplace, and others were gipsy quotations trying to
conceal the punctuation marks that belonged to them. Memory was much
chagrined to have had such a hard chase only to catch this sorry lot of
graceless rogues.

Into the rabble strode four stately giants who called themselves
History, Philosophy, Law, and Medicine. They seemed too solemn and
imposing to join in a masque. But even as I gazed at these formidable
guests, they all split into fragments which went whirling, dancing in
divisions, subdivisions, re-subdivisions of scientific nonsense! History
split into philology, ethnology, anthropology, and mythology, and these
again split finer than the splitting of hairs. Each speciality hugged
its bit of knowledge and waltzed it round and round. The rest of the
company began to nod, and I felt drowsy myself. To put an end to the
solemn gyrations, a troop of fairies mercifully waved poppies over us
all, the masque faded, my head fell, and I started. Sleep had wakened
me. At my elbow I found my old friend Bottom.

"Bottom," I said, "I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what
dream it was. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. The eye of
man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, his hand is not able
to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream
was."

A CHANT OF DARKNESS

A CHANT OF DARKNESS

"_My wings are folded o'er mine ears,
My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes,
Yet through their silver shade appears,
And through their lulling plumes arise,
A Shape, a throng of sounds._"