OVER STRAND AND FIELD

We walked through the empty galleries and deserted rooms
where spiders spin their cobwebs over the salamanders of Francis
the First. One is overcome by a feeling of distress at the sight of this
poverty which has no grandeur. It is not absolute ruin, with the
luxury of blackened and mouldy débris, the delicate embroidery of
flowers, and the drapery of waving vines undulating in the breeze,
like pieces of damask. It is a conscious poverty, for it brushes its
threadbare coat and endeavours to appear respectable. The floor has
been repaired in one room, while in the next it has been allowed to
rot. It shows the futile effort to preserve that which is dying and to
bring back that which has fled. Strange to say, it is all very
melancholy, but not at all imposing.