They soon returned, however, and
bore the king down into the middle of the lake. All the Shadows came
crowding round him, respectfully but fearlessly; and sure never such a
grotesque assembly revealed itself before to mortal eyes. The king had
seen all kind of gnomes, goblins, and kobolds at his coronation; but
they were quite rectilinear figures compared with the insane
lawlessness of form in which the Shadows rejoiced; and the wildest
gambols of the former were orderly dances of ceremony beside the
apparently aimless and wilful contortions of figure, and metamorphoses
of shape, in which the latter indulged. They retained, however, all the
time, to the surprise of the king, an identity, each of his own type,
inexplicably perceptible through every change. Indeed this preservation
of the primary idea of each form was more wonderful than the
bewildering and ridiculous alterations to which the form itself was
every moment subjected.
"What are you?" said the king, leaning on his elbow, and looking around
him.
"The Shadows, your majesty," answered several voices at once.
"What Shadows?"
"The human Shadows. The Shadows of men, and women, and their children."
"Are you not the shadows of chairs and tables, and pokers and tongs,
just as well?"
At this question a strange jarring commotion went through the assembly
with a shock. Several of the figures shot up as high as the aurora, but
instantly settled down again to human size, as if overmastering their
feelings, out of respect to him who had roused them.
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