Grace Cassidy Or The Repealers - 1834 Author:Marguerite Blessington Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. " A. fete is one of the many palliatives for that common malady ennui, and, like most palliatives, gives but a temporary relief, generally follow... more »ed by a return of the disease." The long looked-for fete to be given by Mr.Vernon at length arrived, and was ushered in by torrents of rain, which poured from an early hour in the day, and continued without intermission, as if to prove to him, a truth he had lately seemed to doubt, namely, that gold cannot command all things. The temporary rooms, not formed to " bide the pelt- ing of the pitiless storm," became inundated ; and temples draped with pale rose and celestial blue, ere half the day was over, were only fit to receive Naiades, and were totally inapplicable to the terrestrial nymphs and swains for whom they were arranged. Galleries and kiosks crumbled " like the baseless fabric of a vision," leaving many a wreck behind; and had Mr. Vernon contemplated the novel exhibition of a Naumachia for the amusement of his guests, he might have easily contrived to accomplish it, so plentiful was the supply of water on the leads, and in the garden, where the fete was to have displayed its greatest attractions. Triumphal arches lay prostrate on the earth, burying in their fall the rich and rare plants and flowers imported from all the nurseries round London; and fragments of silk draperies, mingled with garlands of artificial roses, were seen borne along the yellow streams that urged their turbid course through all the walks in this lately beautiful garden. Variegated lamps were tossing in the breeze on the dripping branches that supported them; and the drenched flowers, half covered by mould and gravel, gave an air of desolation and ruin, that seemed to warn millionaires how soon the elements may dissipate the fruits o...« less