Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Europe -- Description and travel
Opening from this apartment on either side are suits of rooms, the whole
series being three hundred and thirty-three feet in length. These rooms
are all hung with pictures, and studded with antiques and curiosities of
immense value. There is, first, the red drawing room, and then the cedar
drawing room, then the gilt drawing room, the state bed room, the
boudoir, &c., &c., hung with pictures by Vandyke, Rubens, Guido, Sir
Joshua Reynolds, Paul Veronese, any one of which would require days of
study; of course, the casual glance that one could give them in a rapid
survey would not amount to much.
We were shown one table of gems and lapis lazuli, which cost what would
be reckoned a comfortable fortune in New England. For matters of this
kind I have little sympathy. The canvas, made vivid by the soul of an
inspired artist, tells me something of God's power in creating that
soul; but a table of gems is in no wise interesting to me, except so far
as it is pretty in itself.
I walked to one of the windows of these lordly apartments, and while the
company were examining buhl cabinets, and all other deliciousness of the
place, I looked down the old gray walls into the amber waters of the
Avon, which flows at their base, and thought that the most beautiful of
all was without. There is a tiny fall that crosses the river just above
here, whose waters turn the wheels of an old mossy mill, where for
centuries the family grain has been ground. The river winds away through
the beautiful parks and undulating foliage, its soft, grassy banks
dotted here and there with sheep and cattle, and you catch farewell
gleams and glitters of it as it loses itself among the trees.
Gray moss, wall flowers, ivy, and grass were growing here and there out
of crevices in the castle walls, as I looked down, sometimes trailing
their rippling tendrils in the river. This vegetative propensity of
walls is one of the chief graces of these old buildings.
In the state bed room were a bed and furnishings of rich, crimson
velvet, once belonging to Queen Anne, and presented by George III. to
the Warwick family. The walls are hung with Brussels tapestry,
representing the gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The
chimney-piece, which is sculptured of verde antique and white marble,
supports two black marble vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is
a full-length portrait of Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing
the collar and jewels of the Garter, bearing in one hand a sceptre, and
in the other a globe. There are two splendid buhl cabinets in the room,
and a table of costly stone from Italy; it is mounted on a richly carved
and gilt stand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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