and went out, the red of some strange flower or some tall peak, blue and
snowy and fairylike in lonely moonlight; and now so great was my conversion
that the more brutal the outrage offered to my ancient ideal, the rarer and
keener was my delight. I read almost without fear: "My dreams were of naked
youths riding white horses through mountain passes, there were no clouds in
my dreams, or if there were any, they were clouds that had been cut out as
if in cardboard with a pair of scissors."

I had shaken off all belief in Christianity early in life, and had suffered
much. Shelley had replaced faith by reason, but I still suffered: but here
was a new creed which proclaimed the divinity of the body, and for a long
time the reconstruction of all my theories of life on a purely pagan basis
occupied my whole attention. The exquisite outlines of the marvellous
castle, the romantic woods, the horses moving, the lovers leaning to each
other's faces enchanted me; and then the indescribably beautiful
description of the performance of _As you like it_, and the supreme
relief and perfect assuagement it brings to Rodolph, who then sees Mdlle.
de Maupin for the first time in woman's attire. If she were dangerously
beautiful as a man, that beauty is forgotten in the rapture and praise of
her unmatchable woman's loveliness.

But if Mdlle. de Maupin was the highest peak, it was not the entire
mountain. The range was long, and each summit offered to the eye a new and
delightful prospect. There were the numerous tales,--tales as perfect as
the world has ever seen; "La Morte Amoureuse," "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de
Cléopâtre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et
Camées," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective
_blanc_ and _blanche_ is repeated with miraculous felicity in
each stanza. And then Contralto,--