United States or Saint Martin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In front of them stood the theatre, its portico ornamented with shining masks, and its huge circular wall covered with innumerable statues. Following the crowd, they entered a narrow passage, at the end of which lay the amphitheatre, glittering with light. They took their places on one of the seats, which descended in steps to the stage, which was empty but magnificently decorated.
Believing that you, after the excitement and fatigue which you have suffered while engaged in your glorious undertakings, will be disposed to give some time to recreation, it seems proper to me to send you by our courier, Giovanni, a hundred masks.
Through the serious literature of to-day runs a bitter wail, the cry that life is sad and dark and cruel. Sad and dark and cruel it is, until one meets it sword in hand. The great Mother will have her children to be heroes. She tests them, frightens them, masks herself sometimes in terror.
Some moments passed before we heard anything; then there came the sound of the key striking mud in the black depths far below. The secret shaft, then, led to the bottom of the tower. The Countess shuddered, and whispered: "Come, let us not lose a moment." I first lifted the masks, and recognized the murderers as fellows I had seen lounging in the court-yard.
"The ring or contact test for indol," Kennedy replied, with evident satisfaction. "When the acid and the nitrites are mixed the colour reaction is unsatisfactory. The natural yellow tint masks that pink tint, or sometimes causes it to disappear, if the tube is shaken. But this is simple, clear, delicate unescapable. There was indol in that food of yours, Mr. Pitts." "Indol?" repeated Pitts.
I happened to remember that it was carnival time in Paris I seemed to see the carriages filled with masks crossing the boulevards. I heard the shouts of the crowds before the theatres; I saw the lascivious dances, the gay costumes, the wine and the folly; all my youth bounded in my heart. "Let us disguise ourselves," I said to Brigitte. "It will be for our own amusement, but what does that matter?
The peasantry have less of the luxury of ownership than in most other parts of France; though they have enough of it to give them quite their share of that shrewdly conservative look which, in the little chaffering place of the market-town, the stranger observes so often in the wrinkled brown masks that surmount the agricultural blouse.
On reaching the bright and gay scene of the piazza, which contrasted with the gloomy court he had just quitted like morning with night, he saw the utter fruitlessness of further pursuit. Frightened at the loss of his master's signet, however, the indiscreet but well intentioned gondolier rushed into the crowd, and tried in vain to select the delinquent from among a thousand masks.
These are the masks of Palermo, whose origin, like that of other Italian masks, is of great antiquity. They grew up to supply a want just as in our own day we have seen Ally Sloper growing up to supply a want of the people of London.
Oh, how much comfort is in a little cup of chocolate! what an underpinning does it afford our spiritual house, a material basis for our mental operations! In its support, we go it a little longer on the Plaza, see more masks, hear more guitars and "catch-this-rat!" and finally return, in a hired volante, to the Ensor House, where rest and the bedless cots await us.
Word Of The Day