called "The Enchanted Castle" that had a matinée on Thursday; and this gorgeous spectacle appealed to him like a fairy tale.
The dramas that depicted life did not invite him to attempt any imitation of them, but he felt that it would be a pure joy to plan such a play as this "Enchanted Castle"; and he amused himself by picturing a ballet for it—not in the "wizard's cavern," but in the great hall of an ice palace, of which all the floors were shining ice, transparently blue; and the walls were blocks of snow, like a white marble, sparkling in raised designs of frost; and from the arched ceilings hung great chandeliers that were pendant icicles supporting a myriad of lights; and on a throne that looked as if it had been carved from a frozen waterfall, sat the goddess of Winter, in ermine and white velvets, holding her wand of silver tipped with a great pearl, and looking down on her Amazons with their icy breastplates and their frost-spangled skirts. He was returning, unconsciously, to all he had ever imagined of Santa Claus's palace that stood on the top of a mountainous iceberg and was peopled by fairies who arrived and departed on floating clouds. He imagined Winter as a neglected divinity who envied the praises which mankind, and especially the poets, gave to her sisters of the Spring, the Summer and the Autumn. He saw the Prince, her devoted lover, in a drifted forest (that was his ravine at Coulton on a larger scale) sitting on some broken fir branches with a dog crouched in the snow beside him—when suddenly the dog barked and he looked up to see that the side of the hill had opened
