--But truly it needs the highest art of all known nations to
worthily deck a habitation wherein the divine Muse may daily
dwell, ... nevertheless, air, light, and flowers are not lacking,
and on these methinks I could subsist, were I deprived of all
other things!"

Theos sat silent, looking about him wistfully. Was ever poet,
king, or even emperor, housed more sumptuously than this, he
thought? ... as his eyes wandered to the domed ceiling, wreathed
with carved clusters of grapes and pomegranates,--the walls,
frescoed with glowing scenes of love and song-tournament,--the
groups of superb statuary that gleamed whitely out of dusky,
velvet-draped corners,--the quaintly shaped book-cases,
overflowing with books, and made so as to revolve round and round
at a touch, or move to and fro on noiseless wheels,--the grand
busts, both in bronze and marble, that stood on tall pedestals or
projecting bracket; and,--while he dimly noted all these splendid
evidences of unlimited wealth and luxury,--the perfume and lustre
of the place, the glitter of gold and azure, silver and scarlet,
the oriental languor pervading the very air, and above all the
rich amber and azure-tinted light that bathed every object in a
dream-like and fairy radiance, plunged his senses into a delicious
confusion,--a throbbing fever of delight to which he could give no
name, but which permeated every fibre of his being.

He felt half blinded with the brilliancy of the scene,--the
dazzling glow of color,--the sheen of deep and delicate hues
cunningly intermixed and contrasted,--the gorgeous lavishness of
waving blossoms that seemed to surge up like a sea to the very
windows,--and though many thoughts flitted hazily through his