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As for Operas, they are essentially too absurd and extravagant to mention; I look upon them as a magic scene, contrived to please the eyes and the ears, at the expense of the understanding; and I consider singing, rhyming, and chiming heroes, and princesses, and philosophers, as I do the hills, the trees, the birds, and the beasts, who amicably joined in one common country dance, to the irresistible turn of Orpheus's lyre.
All my relations are against me, and struggle against my fate as I may, I must in the end bend to their will if I remain here. `Tis a hard choice to make; but what can I do? Yes, I will trust to your honour; and may God and all the saints punish you if you are false to the trust! Tomorrow evening, as the vespers are chiming, I will be at the water's edge, behind yonder clump of bushes."
Around us were the weird white hills, with a smear of mist over them. The radiant moon, the snow, and the chiming camels I shall never forget. Captain Rhys Williams was also at the Goodwins; and as he was in very great anxiety to get to Hamadan, I offered to take him in my car, and let Mr. Scott do the last stage of the journey in the Legation car to Tehran.
This alone was sufficient to arouse his neighbors' attention, and they soon heard the surpassingly beautiful voice of a female singing to the accompaniment of a piano. Then the music of a violin was heard chiming in and entering upon a keen ardent contest with the voice. They knew at once that the player was the Councillor.
The Central or Octagon Hall is an elegant and well lighted apartment eighty feet in height. It is covered by a groined roof ornamented with 250 bosses. The Clock Tower is forty feet square and 320 feet high. The Palace Clock in this tower is an eighty-day clock, striking the hours and chiming the quarters upon eight bells. Its four dials on the tower are each thirty feet in diameter.
How refreshing was the marvelously blue water, and how beautifully clear it looked as it ran over many-colored stones and mingled with the golden spangles of the sandy bottom! All at once he clearly heard the hour chiming. He shuddered, raised his head, looked at the window to calculate the time.
The clock in a neighboring steeple was striking the ninth hour, and the old man paused in his muttering and sat counting the strokes as the iron tongue pealed them forth; counting them in his fear as if each stroke was a knell, and so indeed to him it was, and many of the chimes we listen carelessly to, would be knells to us, if we knew what would happen twixt them and their next chiming.
And yet it was not quite the last. I found myself weary and yet wakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep which would not come. Far away a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house. And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable.
The girl had been singing half to herself a wild little Scottish ballad, chiming it in with water and wind and bird music, taking first one part and then another; looping together a long chain of pine needles the while, then throwing back her sleeve, and laying the frail work across her arm, above the tiny hair chain, the broad band of gems and the string of acorns, which banded it; in short, disporting herself generally.
The emperor had said nothing, and had left Vienna amid the chiming of bells and the loud greetings of the people.
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