purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit.
Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as
set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and
characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The
Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of
stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting
direction"--such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to
be called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not
much appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The
Blind Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince and
once, I think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what
was it all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number
of banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent
kitchen in the third act (was it in the third?)--they are all fallen
in a deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish.

I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite
forget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to
"twopence coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of
it--crimson lake!--the horns of elf-land are not richer on the
ear)--with crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be
compounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The
latter colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite
pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day my
heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness the very
aspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure
in the painting. But when all was painted, it is needless to deny it,
all was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a scene or two to look at;
but to cut the figures out was simply sacrilege; nor could any child
twice court the tedium, the worry, and the long-drawn disenchantment
of an actual performance. Two days after the purchase the honey had
been sucked. Parents used to complain; they thought I wearied of my
play. It was not so: no more than a person can be said to have wearied
of his dinner when he leaves the bones and dishes; I had got the
marrow of it and said grace.

Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study
that enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true child
of Skelt, reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much
a