The Keepers of the People

954Like most great men of action the Princes of Varandaleel were sensualists; and in the passing of the years the ministers to their senses had grown more and more skilful. The designers, the weavers, and the craftsmen had made the palace a dwelling-place more and more splendid to the eye; the gardeners had made each of its many gardens a fragrant paradise teeming with the brightest flowers, and the finest fruits; the officers of the kitchen loaded their table with more and more delicate dishes; their vinegrowers and cellarers brought them more and more exquisite wines. The musicians ravished their ears with sweeter and sweeter melodies, the dancers their eyes with movements of a more and more voluptuous grace. But in everything — stamped as it had been in the beginning with the Western taste of the first Prince, and developing along the lines of Western taste — there was a redeeming touch of the barbaric, an assertion of the East. Here and there a crude hue that would not blend with the colouring of a room, jarred on the eye, a grotesque distortion broke the lines of the carving; a dish of an extravagant, or bitter flavour jarred on the palate at the feast; a short burst of discord jarred almost savagely on the ear in a sweet melody; a writhing contortion broke for a breath the dancer’s grace.