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The Poetry of Architecture by John Ruskin
page 52 of 194 (26%)
was that three brothers took service with a kinglet in Macedonia. The
queen, who cooked their food herself, for it was in the good old times,
noticed that the portion of Perdiccas, the youngest, always "rose" three
times as large as any other. The king judged this to be an omen of the
lad's coming to fortune; and dismissed them. They demanded their wages.
"When the king heard talk about wages--you must know _the sun was
shining into the house, down the chimney_--he said (for God had hardened
his heart) 'There's your wage; all you deserve and all you'll get:' and
pointed to the sunshine. The elder brothers were dumfoundered when they
heard that; but the lad, who happened to have his knife with him, said,
'We accept, King, the gift.' With his knife he _made a scratch around
the sunstreak_ on the floor, took the shine of it three times into the
fold of his kirtle"--his pocket, we should say nowadays--"and went his
way." Eventually he became king of Macedonia, and ancestor of Alexander
the Great.]




V.

A CHAPTER ON CHIMNEYS.


61. It appears from the passage in Herodotus, which we alluded to in the
last paper, that there has been a time, even in the most civilized
countries, when the king's palace was entirely unfurnished with anything
having the slightest pretension to the dignity of chimney tops; and the
savory vapors which were wont to rise from the hospitable hearth, at
which the queen or princess prepared the feast with the whitest of
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