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Crassus paid one hundred thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their real value.
On the farther side the colonnade opens into a great number of very brilliant banqueting-rooms, which you enter by withdrawing curtains of scarlet cloth, a colour vividly contrasting with the white shining marble of which the whole kiosk is formed.
The banqueting-rooms were all open and illuminated, the colonnade was full of guests in gorgeous groups, some standing and conversing, some seated on small Persian carpets smoking pipes beyond all price, and some young grandees lounging, in their crimson shawls and scarlet vests, over the white balustrade, and flinging their glowing shadows over the moonlit water: from every quarter came bursts of melody, and each moment the river breeze brought gusts of perfume on its odorous wings.
On the farther side, the colonnade opens into a great number of very brilliant banqueting-rooms, which you enter by withdrawing curtains of scarlet cloth, a colour vividly contrasting with the white shining marble of which the whole Kiosk is formed.
If it be inquired how a palace of the dimensions described can have sufficed even for one of the early Persian kings, the reply must seemingly be that the building in question can only have contained the public apartments of the royal residence the throne-room, banqueting-rooms, guard-rooms, etc., and that it must have been supplemented by at least one other edifice of a considerable size, the Gynaeceum or "House of the Women."
Who knows but their odour is congenial to a Dutch constitution? One should be inclined to this supposition by the numerous banqueting-rooms and pleasure-houses which hang directly above their surface, and seem calculated on purpose to enjoy them. Such burgomasters might erect their pavilions in such situations.
So to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility.
All Italy reminds one of the papal palace at Avignon the banqueting-rooms above, the dungeons of the Inquisition below; popes and princes feasting within sound of the rack and the scourge. The Revolution is but the ripening of the disease; the hydrophobia which has been lurking in the system for centuries." "Why, then," said Sheridan, "shall we all wonder at what all expected?
The banqueting-rooms were all open and illuminated, the colonnade full of guests in gorgeous groups, some standing and conversing, some seated on small Persian carpets smoking pipes beyond all price, and some young grandees lounging in their crimson shawls and scarlet vests over the white balustrade, and flinging their glowing shadow over the moonlit water: from every quarter bursts of melody, and each moment the river breeze brought gusts of perfume on its odorous wings.
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