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The length of the column was apparently about five hundred feet, and the pedestal of sandstone on which it stood was itself upwards of two hundred feet high. This magnificent column seemed the flag-staff of a gigantic crystal fortress, which was suddenly revealed by the clearing away of the fog-bank to the north.

Simple, but singularly elegant, it stood on a circular foot, a short pedestal with a slightly spreading base, and, though not of signal depth, justified its title by the charm of its shape as well as by the tone of its surface. It might have been a large goblet diminished, to the enhancement of its happy curve, by half its original height.

In the past ages the world has not seen and appreciated this fact; but the world of to-day does appreciate it, and will certainly set every worker upon his proper pedestal, high or low, according as his efforts have conduced or not to the welfare of humanity. Present reform in this particular is not to be looked for; it must be external rather than internal.

The pedestal serves the same purpose in sculpture as the frame in the sister art; it cuts off the ideal space which the statue fills from the real space where it is housed, raising it above the common ground of real life, with its practical and social attitudes, into the realm of contemplation.

Even before the colonel made his appearance I had begun to see that my enemy, the poodle, occupied an exceptional position in that household. It was abundantly clear by the time I took my leave. I may be wrong, but I cannot think that it is wise to put any poodle upon such a pedestal as that.

There was a great high-vaulted room all of black marble, and in the middle of it was a pedestal with seven steps, all of black marble; and on the pedestal stood a stone statue of a woman looking as natural as life, only that her eyes were shut.

Had this been observed by anyone besides himself? If by chance some person wandering about the court had been looking up but no, the few people gathered there stood too far forward to see what was going on in this part of the gallery; and relieved from all further anxiety on this score, he joined Correy at the pedestal and at a word from him succeeded in squeezing himself around it into the small space they had left for him between the pushed-out hanging and the wall.

The first object that will arrest the visitor's attention on entering this fine apartment is the gigantic skeleton of the extinct elk of Ireland, which towers above every other object, from its pedestal, placed in the centre of the room. It is seven feet in height, and eight feet in length.

The headman did not say this; he did not mean to say this, for he is a very courteous man and a great friend of all of us; but that is what it came to, I think. The trunk of this tree is more than ten feet through not a round bole, but like the pillar in a Gothic cathedral, as of many smaller boles growing together; and the roots spread out into a pedestal before entering the ground.

The big lamp, which gave a brilliant light, was of hammered brass; the base of its square pedestal was partly hidden in the rumples of a heavy damask spread which covered the table on which it rested.