en
she ran at full speed with the red queen and never passed anything or
got anywhere.

The merry frolic went on madly. The dancers were all manner of thoughts.
There were sad thoughts and happy thoughts, thoughts suited to every
clime and weather, thoughts bearing the mark of every age and nation,
silly thoughts and wise thoughts, thoughts of people, of things, and of
nothing, good thoughts, impish thoughts, and large, gracious thoughts.
There they went swinging hand-in-hand in corkscrew fashion. An antic
jester in green and gold led the dance. The guests followed no order or
precedent. No two thoughts were related to each other even by the
fortieth cousinship. There was not so much as an international alliance
between them. Each thought behaved like a newly created poet.

"His mouth he could not ope,
But there flew out a trope."

Magical lyrics--oh, if I only had written them down! Pell-mell they came
down the sequestered avenues of my mind, this merry throng. With
bacchanal song and shout they came, and eye hath not since beheld
confusion worse confounded.

Shut your eyes, and see them come--the knights and ladies of my revel.
Plumed and turbaned they come, clad in mail and silken broideries,
gentle maids in Quaker gray, gay princes in scarlet cloaks, coquettes
with roses in their hair, monks in cowls that might have covered the
tall Minster Tower, demure little girls hugging paper dolls, and
rollicking school-boys with ruddy morning faces, an absent-minded
professor carrying his shoes under his arms and looking wise, followed
by cronies, fairies, goblins, and all the troops just loosed from Noah's
storm-tossed ark. They walked, they strutted, they soared, they swam,
and some came in through fire. One sprite climbed up to the moon on a
ladder made of leaves and frozen dew-drops. A peacock with a great
hooked bill flew in and out among the branches of a pomegranate-tree
pecking the rosy fruit. He screamed so loud that Apollo turned in his
chariot of flame and from his burnished bow shot golden arrows at him.
This did not disturb the peacock in the least; for he spread his
gem-like wings and flourished his wonderful, fire-tipped tail in the
very face of the sun-god! Then came Venus--an exact copy of my own
plaster cast--serene, calm-eyed, dancing "high and disposedly" like
Queen Elizabeth, surrounded by a troop of lovely Cupids mounted on
rose-tinted clouds, blown hither and thither by sweet w