Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 180 of 504 (35%)
at the summit of the tower, and cause it to be kept as a sacred place
forever. By and by the monkey came down and deposited the child on the
ground; the father fulfilled his vow, built the shrine, and made it
obligatory, on all future possessors of the palace to keep the lamp
burning before it. Centuries have passed, the property has changed
hands; but still there is the shrine on the giddy top of the tower, far
aloft over the street, on the very spot where the monkey sat, and there
burns the lamp, in memory of the father's vow. This being the tenure by
which the estate is held, the extinguishment of that flame might yet turn
the present owner out of the palace.

May 21st.--Mamma and I went, yesterday forenoon, to the Spada Palace,
which we found among the intricacies of Central Rome; a dark and massive
old edifice, built around a court, the fronts giving on which are adorned
with statues in niches, and sculptured ornaments. A woman led us up a
staircase, and ushered us into a great gloomy hall, square and lofty, and
wearing a very gray and ancient aspect, its walls being painted in
chiaroscuro, apparently a great many years ago. The hall was lighted by
small windows, high upward from the floors, and admitting only a dusky
light. The only furniture or ornament, so far as I recollect, was the
colossal statue of Pompey, which stands on its pedestal at one side,
certainly the sternest and severest of figures, and producing the most
awful impression on the spectator. Much of the effect, no doubt, is due
to the sombre obscurity of the hall, and to the loneliness in which the
great naked statue stands. It is entirely nude, except for a cloak that
hangs down from the left shoulder; in the left hand, it holds a globe;
the right arm is extended. The whole expression is such as the statue
might have assumed, if, during the tumult of Caesar's murder, it had
stretched forth its marble hand, and motioned the conspirators to give
over the attack, or to be quiet, now that their victim had fallen at its
DigitalOcean Referral Badge