Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/127

 faction is the greater when we have caught it. The decoration is elaborate and masterly, but it almost always gives one the impression of being unfinished, owing to its over-elaboration. The subjects, again, are often on a grand scale, and often in the grand style, but many of them claim only to be quaint grotesques. The fertility of design is, however, extraordinary, and the mansion is abundantly spacious, each room and each cranny having its own individuality, marring somewhat the unity of design of the whole. Two or three of the tapestries strike us as of clearer outline and more finished design than the rest; one in particular in which the chief figure is a gaunt musician followed by a crowd of joyous children. Another, too, of three horsemen takes us, as it were, out into the open, and we seem to feel the air rush past us as they ride. But there is no need to complain of the atmosphere any. where; the air is fresh and sweet throughout; no closeness, no clouds of incense or whiffs of stifling perfume offend the nostril. One suite of rooms entrances our attention by its original scheme of ornament. In each the same design, in itself somewhat repulsive, is repeated in mirrors of different shape, parabolic, elliptical, concave, and the rest, distorting the image in each case, but giving, on the whole, a curious impression of reality. Altogether