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and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are
some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not.
It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was
not.
He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven
chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding
taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they
were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and
phantasm--much of what has been since seen in "Hernani." There were
arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were
delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the
beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the
terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.
To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of
dreams. And these--the dreams--writhed in and about, taking hue from the
rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo
of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in
the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is
silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they
stand. But the echoes of the chime die away--they have endured but an
instant--and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they
depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe
to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted
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