Some Christmas Stories | Page 4

is
that infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal
Counsellor in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red
cloth mouth, wide open, who was not to be endured on any terms, but
could not be put away either; for he used suddenly, in a highly
magnified state, to fly out of Mammoth Snuff-boxes in dreams, when
least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler's wax on his tail, far off; for
there was no knowing where he wouldn't jump; and when he flew over
the candle, and came upon one's hand with that spotted back--red on a

green ground--he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt,
who was stood up against the candlestick to dance, and whom I see on
the same branch, was milder, and was beautiful; but I can't say as much
for the larger cardboard man, who used to be hung against the wall and
pulled by a string; there was a sinister expression in that nose of his;
and when he got his legs round his neck (which he very often did), he
was ghastly, and not a creature to be alone with.
When did that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and why
was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a
hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll, why then were its
stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's
face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have
preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely
insupportable, like the mask. Was it the immovability of the mask? The
doll's face was immovable, but I was not afraid of HER. Perhaps that
fixed and set change coming over a real face, infused into my
quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal
change that is to come on every face, and make it still? Nothing
reconciled me to it. No drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy
chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a
mute band, taken out of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff and
lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old woman, made of wires and a
brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie for two small children;
could give me a permanent comfort, for a long time. Nor was it any
satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it was made of paper, or
to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it. The mere
recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence
anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all perspiration and
horror, with, "O I know it's coming! O the mask!"
I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers--there he
is! was made of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And
the great black horse with the round red spots all over him--the horse
that I could even get upon--I never wondered what had brought him to
that strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly
seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no colour, next to him, that

went into the waggon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled
under the piano, appear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and
other bits for their manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs, but it
was not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present. They
were all right, then; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed
into their chests, as appears to be the case now. The tinkling works of
the music- cart, I DID find out, to be made of quill tooth-picks and wire;
and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually
swarming up one side of a wooden frame, and coming down, head
foremost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person--though
good-natured; but the Jacob's Ladder, next him, made of little squares
of red wood, that went flapping and clattering over one another, each
developing a different picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells,
was a mighty marvel and a great delight.
Ah! The Doll's house!--of which I was not proprietor, but where I
visited. I don't admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that
stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, and door-steps, and a
real balcony--greener than I ever see now, except at watering places;
and even they afford but a poor imitation. And though it DID open all
at once, the entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit, as cancelling
the fiction of a