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He made nearly everything in the way of necessities, and all show the marks of his taste. His dining-tables were on the plan of those of Chippendale but lighter in effect with tapering legs instead of the long cabriole leg ending in claw feet. His mirrors were usually oval with charming festoons. His favorite woods were mahogany and satin-wood, and he used many fine woods for inlay.
Paulette appears to me as one of my happiest recollections. It was the evening of a public holiday. Our principal buildings were illuminated with festoons of fire, a thousand flags waved in the night winds, and the fireworks had just shot forth their spouts of flame into the midst of the Champ de Mars.
Now they had reached the wire entanglements that had been battered by the artillery until they hung in festoons around their posts, leaving paths through which the American lads poured. Then like a great tidal wave they struck the trench! The Germans had clambered out to meet them, and when the two forces met the shock was terrific.
Here and there long, soft festoons of white were draped about groups of trees where the living stood interlocked with the dead. Among the branches huge "snow-bosses" were seen, and "snow-mushrooms" of wondrous shape and bulk were perched upon logs and stumps.
The night was one of summer's softest, earliest beauty: the moonlight slept upon the still waters, and the tall masts, with all their graceful tracery of spar and line, were bathed with rich radiance, mingled with the hundred lights of coloured lamps, suspended from festoons of flowers; low couches stood along the bulwarks of the noble ship, and the meteor flag of England, which waved so oft amid the battle and the breeze, now wafted its ruby cross o'er fair forms gliding through the dance, to the rich strains of merry music 'twas an hour that sent glad feeling to the heart.
A free and hospitable welcome is given to the travelers, their wet garments are ranged for drying on those slender poles usually seen above the ample fireplace of a log-cabin in the West, placed there for the purpose of drying sometimes the week's wash when the weather is rainy, sometimes whole rows of slender circlets of pumpkins for next spring's pies, or festoons of sliced apples.
There we see the rich field covered with flax, or maize, or millet, and intersected by rows of trees which support the green and graceful festoons of the vine; the orange and lemon tree covered with golden fruit appear in the sheltered glens; the olive trees cover the lower hills; islands purple in the beams of the setting sun are scattered over the sea in the west, and the sky is tinted with red softening into the brightest and purest azure; the distant mountains still retain a part of the snows of winter, but they are rapidly melting and they absolutely seem to melt reflecting the beams of the setting sun, glowing as if on fire.
Gardeners' boys and young girls were bearing garlands of flowers, festoons and fragrant nosegays, some piled on large trays which they carried two and two, some on smaller boards or hung on cross poles for one to carry; at that part of the quay where the king's barge lay at anchor numbers of workmen were busily employed in twining festoons of greenery and flowers round the flag-staffs, and in hanging them with lanterns.
The high white mantelpiece, adorned with vases and festoons of flowers, was of Adam's design, and so also was the dado and the cornice. The walls were painted a pale warm pink. A high brass fender, pierced, surrounded the fireplace, and there were a poker, tongs, and shovel to match, and a small brass scuttle still full of coals.
High up on all sides of a circle of green the flowering trees and shrubs interlaced their branches, and the grass, as smooth as velvet, was of such a note as soothed the eye and quieted the senses. In one segment of the verdant circle was a sort of open bower made of poles, up which roses climbed and hung across in gay festoons; and in two other segments mossy banks made resting-places.
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