The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1896-10-17

stirrups hing with three hundred and
twenty-one diamonds. Richard II. had .
coat, valued ut thirty thousand marks,
which was covered with balas rnbies. Hall
describes Henry VIII, on his way to the
Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing
80 jacket of raised gold, the piacard en-
broidered with diamonds and other rich
stones, and a great bauderike about his
neck of large balasses.n The favorites OF
James /. wore earrings of emeralds set in
gold tiligrane. Edward IL. rave to Piers
Gaveston a suit of red-gold armor studded
with jacinths. and a collar of gold roses set
with turquois stones, and u skull-cap gar
semc with pearls. henry II. wore ieweled
gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a
hawk-glove set with twelve rubies and fifty
two great pearls. The ducal hat Of Charles
the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy Of
his race, was studded with %sapphires and
hung with pear-shaped pearls.
How exquisite life had once beeni How
gorgeous in its pomp and decorationl Even
to read the luxury Of the dead was wonder
ful.
Then he turned his attention to embroid-
cries, and to the tapestries that performed
the office of ~frcscoes in the chill rooms of
the northern nations Of Europe. AS he in
vestigatcd tho subject-and he always had
an extraordinary faculty of becoming abso-
lutely absorbed for a moment in whatever
he took up-he was almost saddened by the
reflection of the ruin that time brought on
beautiful and wonderful things. He at any
rate, had escaped that. Summer followed
summer, and the yellow ionquils doomed
and died many times, and nights of horror
repeated the story of their shame, but he was
unchanged. No winter married his face or
stained his fowerlike bloom. How differ
ent it was with material things! Where
had they gone toi Where was the great
crocus-colored robe, on which the gods
fought against the giants, that had t..
worked for Athena! Where the huge vela-
rum that Nero had stretched across the
Colosseum at Rome, on which were repre-
scented the starry sky. and Apollo driving a
chariot drawn by white gilt-re!ned steeds!
He longed TO see the curious table-napkins
wrought for Elagabalus, on which were dis
played all the dainties and yiands that could
be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth
of King Chilperic, with its three hundred
golden bees; the fantastic robes that excited
the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus,
and were figured with s%lions. panthers,
bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters-all, in
fact that a painter can copy from nature;"
and the coat that Charles of Orleans once
wore, on the sleeves of which were en-
broidered the verses Of q song beginning
"Mddame, 5e suts tout joveutr," the musical
accompaniment of the words being wrought
in gold thread, and each note, of square
shape in those days, formed with four pearls.
He read of the room that was prepared at
the palace Mt Rheims for the use of Queen
Joan of Burgundy, and was decorated with
thirteen hundred and twenty-one parrots,
made in broidery. and blazoned with the
kings arms, and five hundred and sixty one
butterflies, whose wings were similarly
ornamented with the arms of the queen, the
whole worked in gold" Catherine de
Medicis had u mourning-bed made for her
of black velvet powdered with crescents
and suns. Its curtains were of damask,
with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured
upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed
along the edges with broideries Of pearls,
and it stood in a room hung with rows Of
the queens devices in cut black velvet up
on cloth Or silver. Louis NV. had gold
embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in
his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski,
King of Poland, wa nae of Smyrna gold
brocadc embroidered in turquoiscs with
verses from the Koran. Its supports were
of silver gilt, beautifully chased and pro-
fusely set with enameled and jewclad me-
dallions. 1t had been taken from tho Turk
ish camp before Vienna, and the standard
of Mohammed had stood under it.
And so. for a whole year, he sought to 40
cumulate the most exquisite specimens that
he could find of textile and embroidered
wora, getting the dainty Delhi muslins,
finely wrought, with gold-thread palmatcs,
and stitched over with iridescent beetles
wings; tho Dacca gauzes, that from their
transparency are known in the East us
woven air." and running water" and
"evening dcw;" strange figured clothes
from Java; elaborate yellow Chinese hang
ing; books bound in tawny satins of fair
blue silks and wrought with deurs dc lys,
birds, and images; wells of ldcis worked in
hungary paint; Sicilian brocades, and stiff
Spanish v~elvets; Georgian work with its
gilt coins, and Japanese Foukousds with
their green-toned COLDS and their marvel
ousiy-plumagcd birds.
The hero of the dangerous novel that had
SO influenced his life had himself had this
curious fancy. In a chapter of the book he
tells how, crowned with laurel, lest light
ming might strike him, he had sat, as Tiber-
ius, in a garden at Capri. reading the shame
full books of Elephants, while dwarfs and
peacocks strutted round him ,ta the flute
player Knocked the swinger of the censor;
and, us Caligula, had carouscd with the
green-shirtcd jockeys in their stables, and
supped in an ivory manger with q jewel
frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had
wandered through a corridor lined with
marble mirrors. looking round with haggard
eyes for the reflection of tho dagger that
was to end his days, and sick with that
ennui, that tGdium pit9, that comes on those
to whom life denies nothing; and had peer
ed through q clear emerald at the red
shambles of the circus. and then, in litter
of pearl and purple drawn by silver-shod
mules, been carried through the Street of
Pomegranites to a House of Gold, and heard
men cry on Nero Caesar as he passed by;
and. as Elagabalus, had painted his face
with colors, and piled the distaff among the
women, and brought the moon from Garth
age, and given her a mystic marriage to the
Sun.
Over and over again Dorian used to read
this fantastic chapter, and the chapter i'm.
mediately following in which the hero de
scribes the curious tapestries that he had
woven for him from Gustave Moreau's de.
signs, and on which were pictured the aw.
full and beautiful forms of those whom Vice
and Blood and WEAKNESS had made mon
strous or mad: Filippo. Duke of Milan, whit
slew his wife, and painted her lips with 8
scarlet poison; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian
known as Paul the Second, who sought il
his vanity to assume the title Of Formosus
and whose tiara, valued ut two hundred
thousand forms. was bought at the price OF
q terrible sin; Clan Maria Visconti, VIII
used hounds to chase living men, and who's,
murdered body was covered with roses by
harlot who had loved him; the Borgia OF
his white horse, with Fratridide riding be
side him, and his mantle stained with tn,
blood of Perotto; Petro .RiaIio, the younl
Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, child AM
minion of Sixtus ", whose beauty wa!