"
"I think Mrs. Walton is right, Turner," I said. "For my part, I have more
admired the open-mindedness of Hippolyta, who would yield more weight
to the consistency of the various testimony than could be altogether
counterbalanced by the negation of her own experience. Now I will tell you
what I most admire in the play: it is the reconciling power of the poet. He
brings together such marvellous contrasts, without a single shock or jar
to your feeling of the artistic harmony of the conjunction. Think for a
moment--the ordinary commonplace courtiers; the lovers, men and women in
the condition of all conditions in which fairy-powers might get a hold of
them; the quarrelling king and queen of Fairyland, with their courtiers,
Blossom, Cobweb, and the rest, and the court-jester, Puck; the ignorant,
clownish artisans, rehearsing their play,--fairies and clowns, lovers and
courtiers, are all mingled in one exquisite harmony, clothed with a night
of early summer, rounded in by the wedding of the king and queen.
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