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Around the vast and sumptuous chamber, where the proud Signoria assembled, like a council of kings, Venice had chronicled her triumphs and her religious humility in endless repetition and intimately blended, as became her faith; the Doges Priuli, kneeling in prayer; Venice, mounted defiantly on the Lion of Saint Mark; other portraits of other doges, in attitudes of devotion; other pictures of the Christ, of the saints, always symbolic; but over all, triumphant, beautiful, with its irresistible sea-tones, cool and strong, Venice, Queen of the Sea, compelling the homage of her rulers, from the ceiling's height.
The source of their delight was not the great ragged hole just over the intruding heads, in the ceiling's lath and plaster, nor was it a whole corner torn off the grand-piano by the somersaulting shell as it leaped from the rent above to the cleaner one it had left at the baseboard in the room's farther end.
On this turbulent night the old kitchen looked very peaceful and home-like, the open fire burned brightly, flashing its flame- light against the ceiling's huge oak beams everything was swept clean and polished to the utmost point of perfection, and the table on which Robin rested the book he was reading was covered with a tapestried cloth, embroidered in many colours, dark and bright contrasted cunningly, with an effect that was soothing and restful to the eyes.
"Mind your heads, young gents, ceiling's pretty low." We had already found that out by having our caps scraped by a rough beam under which we passed. "Now then, go up the ladder and push the trap-door open gently, so as not to frighten 'em. Turn the door right over, and let it down by the staple so as it lies on the floor. 'Tain't dark; plenty o' light comes through the pigeon-holes."
She spoke with such emphasis that it was quite obvious that she expressed unpopular views, and that her children disagreed with her. "The ceiling's fallen down in the pantry again," said Hester, a girl of eighteen, abruptly. "The whole house will be down one of these days," James muttered. "Nonsense," said Mrs. Denham.
Then, shaking his mop of brown, curly hair as though to relieve his head of a burden, he took the girls for what he felt was a much-needed round of drinks. By midnight the place was wild! "Sam," shouted Curly, "what's the limit on your pesky old game?" "The ceiling's the limit." "Well, I'll put up one bet!
Yet, even for us, there is left some loveliness of environment, and the dulness of tutors and professors matters very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters at Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in Waynfleete's chapel, or lie in the green meadow, among the strange snake-spotted fritillaries, and watch the sunburnt noon smite to a finer gold the tower's gilded vanes, or wander up the Christ Church staircase beneath the vaulted ceiling's shadowy fans, or pass through the sculptured gateway of Laud's building in the College of St.
So, down came the ceiling's height, and closer drew the walls, until the model of the Petit Trianon was reached and considered the ideal if that were not indeed the miniature Swiss Cottage. What place had an acre of tapestry in these little rooms?
It was as if her heart-strings had snapped asunder. What was it? What was it? She lay back among her pillows, trembling in the dark, afraid of she knew not what, her wide eyes agaze at the ceiling's shadows. And then after a long while she fell asleep again and once more dreamed. The wind soughed through her dream again, pitifully, wailingly, as it had often soughed outside the dugout.
Every chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear depending from the ceiling's eye. Odours, as from vaults and damp places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages.
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