~The Enchanted Castle~

-by E. Nesbit

I was told about a year ago that we were considering using The Enchanted Castle for our cousin camp production in a summer to come. But after further discussion, it was decided that it had to many "un-realities" and it would be impossible to film.

At the time, I had not read the book, but I knew the jist of it. And being told I would be casted as the witty Mabel, I was, of course, outraged.

But only until now do I understand why. It is filled to the brim with magic, statues, estates, and feasts that would be impossible to film. (not to mention the flying gods)

Don't get me wrong, I would still like to attempt filming maybe just a few scenes... but that is for another few years.

It seemed about an hour, and was really quite ten minutes, before they heard the bedroom door open and Mabel's feet on the stairs. 'She hasn't found it,' Gerald said. 'How do you know?' Jimmy asked. 'The way she walks,' said Gerald. You can, in fact, almost always tell whether the thing has been found that people have gone to look for by the sound of their feet as they return.

'We've got to find these clothes,' said Mabel, 'simply got to. I used to want to be a heroine. It's different when it really comes to being, isn't it?'

'It is a fine mansion,' he said at last when they had come back to the point from which they had started; 'but I should suppose, in a house this size, there would mostly be a secret stairway, or a priests' hiding place, or a ghost?' 'There are,' Mabhel briefly, 'but I thought Americans didn't believe in anything but machinery and newspapers.'

And then it is as though a spring touched, a fountain of light released. Everthing changes. Or, rather, everything is revealed. There are no more secrets. The plan of the world seems plain, like an easy sum that one writes in big figures on a child's slate. One wonders how one can ever have wondered about anything. Space is not; every place that one has seen or dreamed of is here. Time is not; into the instant is crowded all that one has ever done or dreamed of doing.

Now to go eat dinner with my missed-much sister :-)