Explore "A Crown of Straw" by Allen Upward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THE Castle of Seidlingen was illuminated. Every window flashed with light, and all the roofs and turrets were picked out in brilliant lines of fire. Through the conservatories and gardens, and along the winding waterways, stretched the rows of many-coloured lamps; the trees were hung with Chinese lanterns of the quaintest pattern, and out in the lake a large floating platform was moored, from which every now and then a sheaf of golden rockets ascended to the sky. At the far end of the grounds, where the mountain began to rise abruptly from the artificial level of the garden, an immense arch of fire shone out against the dark background of the forest, and displayed in burning letters a motto of welcome to the Kaiser.
Within the Castle the dazzling display reached its height. A magnificent ball-room of dimensions large enough to afford space for a thousand persons was lavishly decorated with trophies of flags and weapons, mingled with flowers, and lit up by a double row of white wax candles running round the walls. On the floor, shining with its perfect polish, moved a gorgeous crowd of all the highest personages in Maximilian's kingdom, together with many illustrious visitors from other parts of Germany, who had attended to do honour to the head of the Empire.