Page:A Crystal Age - Hudson - 1922.djvu/22

xviii nothing to describe. They are meaningless and vacant tracts of time. To him who feels their inner secret, they tingle with an importance that unutterably vouches for itself."

Unlike Hudson's other essays in fiction, A Crystal Age is without a local habitation. In outward form it is a dream, a fairy story, if you will. But it has the same poignant human interest that glows in The Purple Land and Green Mansions. Apparently, even when he plans to entertain us with the whimsicalities, antics, and adventures of ideal creatures, Hudson cannot help endowing them, phantoms though they are, with the flesh and blood of humanity. It is the patriarchal form of government that he portrays here, something absolutely different, however, from dream or theory suggested by sociologist or poet. It is the epic of forest life, and the rich and varied colors that compose the picture could be found only on Hudson's palette. And what a mingling of the humorous, the simple, and the heroic there is on this canvas that presents the magic House of Coradine! Yoletta, Edra, Isarte, Chastel—the haunting loveliness of these women is like the breath from some dew-spangled garden of wildflowers, inspiriting, unforgettable. The story in