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Letters From Switzerland (2); Letters From Italy
Letters From Switzerland Letters From Italy - 2 Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1902 Original Publisher: F.A Niccolls Subjects: Switzerland Italy Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial a... more »ccess to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: The room is cheerfully decorated, especially the ceiling, whose arabesques of a hundred compartments bear witness to the proximity of Pompeii and Hercu- laneum. Now, all this is very well and very fine; but there is no fireplace, no chimney, and yet February exercises even here its rights. I expressed a wish for something to warm me. They brought in a tripod of sufficient height from the ground for one conveniently to hold one's hands over it; on it was placed a shallow brasier, full of extremely fine charcoal, red-hot, but covered smoothly over with ashes. We now found it an advantage to be able to manage this process of domestic economy: we had learned that at Rome. With the ring of a key, from time to time, one cautiously draws away the ashes of the surface, so that a few of the embers may be exposed to the free air. Were you impatiently to stir up the glowing coals, you would no doubt experience for a few moments great warmth; but you would in a short time exhaust the fuel, and then you must pay a certain sum to have the brasier filled again. I did not feel quite well, and could have wished for more of ease and comfort. A reed matting was all there was to protect one's feet from the stone floor: skins are not usual. I determined to put on a sailor's cloak which we had brought with us in fun ; and it did me good service, especially when I tied it round my body with the rope of my box. I must have looked very comical, something between a sailor and a Capuchin. When Tischbein came back from visiting some of his friends, and found...« less