At the distance of four feet upon each side of the throne
are placed two parasols or umbrellas, the handles whereof are about
eight feet high, covered with diamonds; the parasols themselves are of
crimson velvet, embroidered and stringed with pearls." This is the
famous throne which Tamerlane began and Shah Jahan finished, which is
really reported to have cost a hundred and sixty million five hundred
thousand livres (thirty-two million one hundred thousand dollars).
I also gloated over the description of that famous London dining-room,
known to the art world as the "Peacock Room," designed by Whistler.
Panels to the right and left represent peacocks with their tails spread
fan-wise, advancing in perspective toward the spectator, one behind the
other, the peacocks in gold and the ground in blue.
I could not go so extensively into interior decoration, and my mania for
making the outside of the house and the grounds highly decorative had
received a severe lesson in the verdict, overheard by me, as I stood in
the garden, made by a gawky country couple who were out for a Sunday
drive.
As Warner once said to me, "young love in the country is a very solemn
thing," and this shy, serious pair slowed up as they passed, to see my
place. The piazza was gay with hanging baskets, vines, strings of beads
and bells, lanterns of all hues; there were tables, little and big, and
lounging chairs and a hammock and two canaries. The brightest geraniums
blossomed in small beds through the grass, and several long flower beds
were one brilliant mass of bloom, while giant sun-flowers reared their
golden heads the entire length of the farm.
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