Moonlight, in a familiar
room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its
figures so distinctly--making every object so minutely visible,
yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility--is a medium the
most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his
illusive guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the
well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separate
individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a
volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the
book-case; the picture on the wall--all these details, so
completely seen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that
they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of
intellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this
change, and acquire dignity thereby. A child's shoe; the doll,
seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse--whatever,
in a word, has been used or played with during the day is now
invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though
still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, therefore,
the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory,
somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the
Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with
the nature of the other.
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