In swift and picturesque sequence the personages
of the Masque pass before us. Merchants, hucksters, players, lovers,
gossips, soldiers, vagabonds, and princes crowd the scene, and have in
turn their word of poignant speech. We mingle with the throng in the
streets; we hear the whir of looms and the din of foundries, the blare
of trumpets, the whisper of lovers, the scandals of the market-place,
and, in brief, are let into all the secrets of the busy microcosm.
A contracted stage, indeed, yet large enough for the play of many
passions, as the narrowest hearthstone may be. With the sounding of the
curfew, the town is hushed to sleep again, and the curtain falls on this
mimic drama of life.
The charm of it all is not easily to be defined. Perhaps if one could
name it, the spell were broken. Above the changing rhythms hangs an
atmosphere too evasive for measurement--an atmosphere that stipulates an
imaginative mood on the part of the reader. The quality which pleases in
certain of the lyrical episodes is less intangible.
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